[nglevin]

If it's something you're passionate about, write about it. What you love will really show through your writing, give it a bit of color.

Don't get too hung up on being an original provider of content. Few people are. Rather, think more about presentation. Anecdotes, history, even trying to spin something into a more modern context. They all matter.

Keep writing. Keep writing often. It's the only way to get better.

[BrewerOnRails]

I find the idea of writing non-original content to be pointless though. If it isn't original then someone else has already said it and they have probably said it better.

[nglevin]

You're defeating yourself too soon.

I think you will be very surprised as to how much people don't know. The regurgitation of information isn't a byproduct of laziness; it's a direct result of two things.

1. People don't like to read.

2. There is far, far too much noise on the web, as it is.

It may have already been said, but I'll guarantee you that only a small minority ever read it.

You could talk about what it is that you know. What it is you hope to know. Not every developer takes the same road. If your intent is to eventually position yourself as a domain expert, the rest should write itself.

[tjr]

One approach could be to write about how you are using the skills you wish to demonstrate. Yet another Ruby-on-Rails tutorial-in-a-series-of-blog-posts may indeed be boring and superfluous, while you writing about how you built some particular project in Rails might not be.

You could write design descriptions of your projects. What decisions did you make, and why? What was the purpose of the project? Why did you write new code instead of using something that had already been written? Etc.

[BrewerOnRails]

I hadn't thought about this. Essentially, I would be doing a postmortem on whatever I build. Good idea!

[breadbox]

Yeah, and of the first dozen programs I wrote, probably someone had already written all of them, and done a far better job. That's not the point.

You're not going to get better if you don't get started.