Category: Writings

Recently, I have touched on the topics of reading and research in my writings, which has sparked curiosity among my readers. Many have asked about my pre-writing process, which is not easy to explain in a few words. So I’ve decided to explain it here.

Whenever I come across an intriguing topic – be it the English term for leap day, the Eurasian coot, or a Minnan colloquial phrase – I turn to Google to begin my research. Wikipedia remains a fundamental resource for understanding a wide range of topics. For specific terms, I consult authoritative dictionaries, including the Taiwanese Mandarin dictionary I mentioned earlier.

In addition, I search through all the texts available on “WeChat Read” to see if any books have mentioned the topic. This allows me to potentially refer to these works in my articles.

During the writing process, when I’m unsure about something – whether a sentence is phrased correctly, whether a punctuation mark is used appropriately, or whether there’s an alternative expression for a word – I ask ChatGPT for an opinion.

Finally, I also have ChatGPT review the entire article, making it the first reader of my work.

I hope this clarifies the process for the curious reader. This writing workflow is essentially a process of learning, summarizing, and sharing via the Internet, which is why I decided to share it.

Last year I wrote about “5 benefits of writing a blog” and today we talk about the benefits of not updating it.

1. Put your phone down

I don’t know if it’s the change in the push mechanism of the platform or the reading habits of the readers, but the number of views dropped significantly after the new year. When everyone is busy making money, dating or traveling, it’s actually a good thing to put the phone down and get out of the house.

2. Reduce unfollowing

It’s often said that people who don’t work never make mistakes. If you don’t update, you usually don’t get unfollowed. Once the new content is sent, it will always remind some readers that they have been following such a useless blog, intentionally or not.

3. Organize old posts

Spend some time to reread the previous content and select some to translate into English, you will also have new profits. For example, after I published an article about Google with a slight change of wording in English, it was successfully blocked by the platform.

4. Wait for inspiration

Although Li Dan had said in his book that creators cannot only rely on inspiration, but need more discipline. But writing a blog is not considered work for most people, it should be more fun.

5. Keep distance

Hotspots may bring more traffic, but they may not be the real issues worthy of attention and discussion. Selective expression is sometimes more powerful.

If it weren’t for the translation work I’ve done over the past few years, I probably wouldn’t be so familiar with traditional Chinese characters. But my familiarity is relative. For example, it is still difficult to pick out the simplified characters from a text written in traditional Chinese characters.

As for writing, it is even more impossible to write the slightly more complex strokes of the word, let alone the traditional Chinese characters.

Whether it’s reading old books, watching Hong Kong and Taiwanese dramas, or interacting at work, I wonder how many young mainlanders still consider knowing traditional Chinese characters a basic skill or, more importantly, a pleasure of self-fulfillment.

Of course, it is not just a question of language. When I was in college (about 15 years ago), we still had friends from Taiwan who were curious about our world and eager to interact. I learned the word “rubber stamp” from them and received a 100 NTD note as a souvenir. But the few Taiwanese students we met in Abisko last Christmas just threw snowballs at us from a distance.

I once wrote that the Mandarin version of a Beyond’s popular song is You Know My Confusion, and that when the two worlds go their separate ways and are cut off from each other, we no longer know each other’s confusion.

This is probably why Midnight Paper has to have a traditional Chinese version.