Behind the CSScenes, November 2022

New faces!

As always, we tend to have a few new faces on the site each month as we work with new guest authors. This month, we welcomed Krzysztof Gonciarz and Lorenzo Bonannella. Check out their articles and give ’em a high five for sharing their work. It takes a lot of work to write, not to mention some courage to put your ideas in front of other people. So, thanks a bunch Krzysztof and Lorenzo!

Meet Mojtaba Seyedi

I thought catching up with one of our long-time writers would be a nice way to cap off this month’s update. And few people have contributed as many articles to CSS-Tricks as Mojtaba Seyedi. You may not see his name pop up in the archives all that much, but it’s only because he spends so much time in the Almanac.

I asked Mojtaba a few questions about his work and he graciously responded with these answers…

Your very first article with us was a roundup of plugins for the Sublime Text editor way back in 2017. What made you think to publish it on CSS-Tricks?

I used to be very passionate about the Sublime Text editor and its plugins. I could always find a plugin to ease the pain whenever I was tired of doing repetitive tasks. I would show my co-workers how interesting whatever plugin I was using was and encourage them to use it.

One of my New Year’s resolutions back then — in 2017 — was to publish an article on CSS-Tricks. I always thought the idea had been highly technical. It never occurred to me I could simply create a list of Sublime Text plugins that I happened to find useful for development! Nowadays, I can see how the high bar I had set was preventing me from writing about something that I loved.

There was a brief moment when I considered giving up on that first article. I had psyched myself out thinking that there were tons of other posts already covering the exact same thing. But out of curiosity, I Googled some of the top Sublime Text plugin posts, and surprisingly, I didn’t see any of the plugins I was writing about. So, that’s how I submitted my first article on this website!

You’ve written a total of 35 articles for CSS-Tricks, 33 of which are in the Almanac. What do you enjoy about writing technical information like that?

Almanac entries are referenceable. We keep coming back to them to check the syntax of a property or a selector. For example, we might need to visit the background shorthand property to remember whether the background-position value goes before or after the slash (/). References never get old, which is why the Almanac is special to me.

Along the same lines, documentation is challenging. One of the challenges of writing for the CSS-Tricks Almanac is reading and understanding the W3C’s specifications. For example, when I wanted to write about the mask-border property, the CSS spec was practically my only source. I needed to figure out all the aspects of that module and how different values behave in different situations because there were scant examples in the wild. I enjoy that sort of challenge and feel great when I can turn my findings into something tangible that other developers can understand and use in their own work.

There’s also the joy of completeness. Documentation allows me to get deep into details that might not make it in a typical article. I get satisfaction when I’m able to grasp a property or selector and explain it in my own words. The CSS-Tricks Alamanc gives me that opportunity.

What can you say about the editing process for those who haven’t gone through it?

First, enjoy a clean and easy process. The CSS-Tricks editorial team will help you improve it and make it better than you can on your own.

Also, be sure to edit your draft first. Always edit the article yourself before submitting it. The more ready your writing is, the more time it gives the editor to help you improve your work. If the editor needs to spend a lot of time fixing basic grammar and spelling, that’s time that could have been spent pushing the idea further with feedback and other considerations.

And, of course, learn from your mistakes. Be open to learning while you’re in the editing process. The editorial team here is very experienced and helpful. I try to review what they have changed in my article and put them into practice in my next writings. I would love to thank Geoff, from whom I have learned a lot about technical writing.

Do you have any tips for someone thinking about submitting an article proposal?

Do not overthink the idea. Your article doesn’t have to be rocket science. Anything you know well enough to write about can be helpful to others.

Another piece of advice: do not underestimate yourself. When Chris Coyier invited the community to contribute to the CSS-Tricks Almanac, I told myself there were many more qualified people who could do that, even though I had experience writing CSS docs. And yes, many folks were (and maybe still are) more knowledgeable than me. But as it turned out, I could be a part of this because I was willing to try.

Another big deal is to not worry about repeating others. Your idea doesn’t have to be unique. You can write about something others have written about in a new and different way. Your point of view and perspective matter! Your approach to solving a problem and how you explain it might be different in a super helpful way.

And finally… what’s your favorite CSS trick?

My favorite trick used to be centering an element by setting display: table on it and letting auto margins do the rest. Nowadays, with CSS becoming much more awesome, I can do the same trick with min-content and without an additional wrapper.

I’m sure there is a blog post or article about this same topic somewhere on the web. But I would like to write about it here on CSS-Tricks. See? I want to share my own perspective with you and I want to explain it in my own way.

Have something you want to share on CSS-Tricks? Send us your pitch!

Behind the CSScenes, November 2022 originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.