But someone already wrote about it

One of the most common reasons people give when they tell (to others or quite often, to themselves; been there, done that) why they don’t blog is “But someone already wrote about it”. This is especially true for technical writing.

I was reading Jimmy Carr’s Before and Laughter and this quote resonated strongly with me:

“Sometimes, noticing what’s already there will seem obvious to you, but it’s nevertheless an act of creativity. And just because it’s obvious to you doesn’t mean anyone else has noticed it before. Or maybe people have noticed it before but didn’t know how to articulate it.”

This applies to writing that blog post too.

We know a bunch of technical stuff and we often think everyone knows the same stuff we do so we don’t bother sharing them. Even the smallest things can be big revelations to a lot of new people who have never ran into it before.

Additionally, even if someone (or 100 someones) have written about it, your blog post can reach new people who never ran into those 100 other posts. You writing that post also helps add new voice, different perspective and different experience to the topic. Even technical topics do not live in a void or vacuum but are learned and shared though different perspectives. Maybe your one is the one that resonates with someone or helps them learn it in a way no one else’s writing did.

So take that idea, that experience, and go ahead and write a blog post.