What to write about

OK, you've decided that you do want to write a book. What should you write about?

There are many different aspects to this question but for today I want you to focus on identifying the topic you want to cover. "I don't have anything to write about" is as lame as a teenager complaining "I'm bored. There's nothing to do."

There is no end of topics to write about. Remember, your goal this month is to write a book. It doesn't need to be a best seller or even one that any publisher would sign. If you were unconstrained by the market, what book would you write? (If part of your dream is also to get published, that's ok too.)

I'm hoping that your problem isn't too few topics but too many. How do you choose from a big bag of book ideas? You could just close your eyes and imagine pulling one out. In fact, that might be one approach. Brainstorm a minute and come up with ten ideas for books you'd like to write. 

Think about the things you're known for. If someone has a question about XXXX they come to you. What's XXXX? If you're at a party you're probably talking about YYYY. What's YYYY? If you're not at a party you're probably working on ZZZZ. What's ZZZZ? These are potential topics.

Look back over your list as if it was created by a friend of yours. Suppose he or she is going to write a book on one of these topics. Which ones would drive you nuts to hear about day in and day out for a month. Get rid of those. They'll drive you nuts if you write that book too. Look at what's left.

In part one of Dave Thomas' So You Want to Write a Book series he explains that he looks for three things from a potential author: Passion, Evangelism, and Practical Knowledge. You should read this article but think about your ideas for books and think about what it is that you are passionate about and talk, blog, eat, and tweet about.

Practical knowledge is particularly important for our one month writing sprint. Learning new things is fun---and you will learn a lot of new things about your topic while writing your book---but you need to start with a solid to core to build on or you'll spend all of your time this month spinning your wheels because you don't know enough to get started.

Today's assignment then is to come up with your topic. You are welcome to share it below in the comments or keep it to yourself. Tomorrow we'll narrow down your topic a bit more and think about who the reader is and what journey we will be taking them on.

Comments

[Brian Tarbox]

I've been a developer for 28 years and I believe I have some experience to pass on. Not about particular languages or techniques but about how to be successful.

Its pretty arrogant of me to think I can write this book but so be it. I think thats the point.

I think one of the main points of this website is to be more than just a "coder".

I've been a dolphin trainer, a consultant, owned my company, I play 4 instruments and I have a young son. Engineering is cool but its only part of the mix. All that "other stuff" ought to make you a better enginner, if you're willing to listen to it.

[Louis St-Amour]

The trouble with writing about the stuff I do now is much of it already has good books for doing it. Which makes me think perhaps I don't want to write a "for beginners" book or a "reference" book since both of those exist for just about everything I'm using -- and I'd go nuts if I had to explain things from scratch or in too much detail.

I'm thinking of instead writing a book on web app creation and hosting on the cheap -- From looking at ways to speed up Rails apps on DreamHost to ... well, perhaps focusing entirely on the FREE Google App Engine, and it really can be possible to write an app in ... I dunno, let's say JavaScript, and deploy it fast. Setup is complicated, but the premise sounds like fun: http://3.ly/5nn

In combination perhaps with server-side JavaScript, a book on client-side JavaScript-based apps, like SproutCore (which hit the 1.0 milestone recently). Because of SproutCore's performance optimizations -- compilation into a JS file & lazy-loading data -- it should be an excellent fit for GAE, with minimal backend server logic.

Thinking of the app further, I'll want to include Facebook Connect for logins, and since there's a JS API iirc, that could fit in very well with a Gmail-style JS-only app.

GAE could also be a great fit for cloud-based iPhone apps, which for most free or personal data-intensive apps can't support a full hosting setup month for month, but where screen-scraping can be too expensive to do on the iPhone (from a data downloading perspective) or where simple remote storage is desired. I suppose all I'd need is the usual "how to get at data from JSON and XML" kind of RESTful API.

If I were more skilled, perhaps I'd look at Rails 3.0 on GAE, but I don't know enough yet about either topic short of playing with Rails 2 and discovering it might timeout on startup. (GAE offers 30 seconds for an app to startup and reply with data.) So scripts have to be very light-weight and heavily cached for best GAE performance. It's not that hard to think about, but I've often wished for a guide to follow, so why not write my own?

Unfortunately, November will also be a very busy month for me at University. Oh well, let's see how far I can get anyway. :-)

If anyone's interested in following my progress or telling me to get off my lazy duff because GAE's something you want to read about, here's my twitter: http://twitter.com/4lou

Louis.

[Scott Stawarz]

Someone sent me your links about writing a book.

That someone knows. It's on my list to not only write a book, but to be published. In fact, I expect to publish numerous books.

What has stopped me? I think I am stopping myself. Time is one part. Not sure really.

So I must choose a topic that I can demonstrate: Passion, Evangelism, and Practical Knowledge?

That doesn't narrow the list down much. Your hypothetical questions help a little, but I think the previous commenter Louis states it well. There are already good books out there that give the reader the journey that I'd demonstrate by my passion, evangelism, and personal practical knowledge.

Then again, is that just an excuse, holding myself back with negative self-talk?

I'm not sure: What's my topic: I'm torn between three, and I have to decide very shortly (luckily it is Daylight Savings Time Weekend, I get an extra hour to decide).

My topic may be: Technology Training, Internet Usage, or Small Business Life.

[Agata Przybyszewska]

In my professional career, which covers from research work at a university trough consultancy work and participating in various agile teams, trough the role as Architect in govermental standartization projects I had to work with actual users. Even more, it was not enough just to work with them, or deliver software that will easy their life ... Oh, no, no we had to extract their clever user-like-ness into proper project requirements to finish with software that really roars. The belief is that the user actually have to participate in the design, conceptual work, innovation.

Contrast this with the error 404 error – you know, the one that sits 40 cm from the screen. Or what about the stability antipattern discovered by Michael Nygaard called, well … users.
Or what about ?

I have managed to learn how to handle this important engagement successfully - and even have fun doing it.

I am taking up the challenge of PragProWriMo!

[r4i gold]

One of the products lately introduced is the r4i gold. The rest of the R4 series too is very popular and isused extensively by many people. But with the introduction of r4i gold, there is something more to expect from your Nintendo.

[r4i sdhc]

Considering the new R4i SDHC, it is noted that the its loading time is pretty quick and is compatible with both DS lite and DS. Similarly down the line is new DSTT. This is probably less efficient than the R4i SDHC version. Also the latest kernel that updated to V1.12b, the recent R4i SDHC supports the new DS console-Nintendo DS LL.

[r4 for 3ds]

This is my new blog,hope you like it.It's theme is r4 and ps3 information collector.It's popular because of r4 for 3ds.