Personally, I've wanted to write to things like Twitter and Dev.to to talk about things but nothing really ever comes to mind. How do people come up with what they want to write about?
Apologies if this isn't the right place, I haven't used this website in a long while.
Top comments (8)
Hey Trent!
Oh man, the ultimate question... that I definitely don't have a good answer to.
Luckily, I know somebody who does... check this post out:
My Blog Post Workflow: from Topic to Publication
Ali Spittel ・ Sep 5 '18 ・ 7 min read
The first section is called "Finding a topic" and should be super helpful!
What are you passionate about? I'm a front end web developer and an advocate for web accessibility. So, I like to write about things I'm learning to move forward in my career and also a lot about why accessibility is important to me as a disabled person.
If you're new to your career, writing about what you're learning is going to be helpful for other new people. If you have a lot of experience, most people with less experience are eager to learn whatever wisdom you have to share about things you've learned over the years.
I've also found that we all struggle from similar issues, like Imposter Syndrome for example, and the tech world needs more people who are willing to openly talk about what they're going through. There's a lot of pressure to be perfect when the truth is that no one is.
Last thing. I wouldn't want anyone to feel too pressured to talk about their personal life. Push to write a little bit outside of your comfort zone, but know you don't have to say anything you don't want to.
Hope this was helpful! 😊
On my personal site I mostly write about side projects I'm working on like building a Kubernetes cluster out of Raspberry Pis or retrospect on courses I've taken.
On Dev.to I've found the activation energy required for getting a post out much lower. I've been mostly writing about specific topics for the current clasd I'm enrolled in to help me focus and learn the material better. I've found that if I can explain something in a post then I can hopefully do it on an exam.
I don't know how to Tweet well though so I mostly just lurk there.
It's taken a while for me to actually start posting stuff, but it's a mix between things I've learned that were hard to learn, and problems I've had to solve and there was no great documented solution out there.
Since I mostly write about making strange connections between programming/Agile to other disciplines, I start by reading a non-programming book. And since I really enjoy the happiness I get from reading Buddhist writings and other philosophy, I typically start with a book like that. Then I mentally wander until I’m able to come up with a (hopefully unique) connection. But ultimately, I care less if the idea is unique and I just try to hold onto the hope that the idea would be something helpful to at least one person. :)
For me, writing about the problems I solve is the easiest one to start with.
Mine are usually based on what I'm doing in work or side projects.
Create something then write about it, the process you used or a specific point you needed to deal with during the creation... Have fun !