Re: On not becoming discouraged

["Jo Baer" <jbaer -at- tcfbank -dot- com>]

Lisa, Geoff, Sean, Andrew, and Bruce have all written extremely thoughtful and
helpful responses to your post. Their advice is very wise. I echo Geoff's comment
that after 15 years, I can still feel like a novice about some aspects of the
profession. I don't know everything that everyone on the list knows. On the other
hand, I don't need to.

I'll add one piece of advice about FrameMaker, which seems to be intimidating you a
bit lately: go to Adobe's site and download their Template Packs. Open each file
and figure out how each element works. There should also be a Primer on the
site--it's a good discussion about creating templates. Learning about templates and
their elements will teach you most of what you need to know about FrameMaker. I
don't remember if I've seen your name on the FrameMaker list, but if you haven't
joined, I highly recommend it.

Are you a lone writer? If so, maybe it would be helpful to find another writer,
either on this list or through some other source, who is willing to act as a
mentor. I've read a lot of your posts, and I think sometimes you've just convinced
yourself you don't know how to proceed. Calm down, take a deep breath, look in the
manual, look back at something else you've done that's similar, and you'll probably
find you're not at such a loss.

Another thing to keep in mind is that it's more about what you're trying to
accomplish than it is about how to use some feature of a tool. If you can sketch
out, either in your head or on paper, what you want to do, it's much easier to find
out how to go about doing it.

Sometimes I have the opportunity of revising a manual I wrote when I was just
learning FrameMaker. I can compare how I sort of beat some poor paragraph or table
into submission because I didn't know the "right" way to do it. So I fix it. But to
the end user it looks exactly the same either way. Some days you use a
sledgehammer, some days you use a tweezer, some days you use both.

Keep at it. If you're a good writer and are willing to learn, you have what it
takes.

Jo

--
Jo Baer
Senior Technical Writer
TCF National Bank
Minneapolis, Minnesota
jbaer -at-  -dot- tcfbank -dot- com


The mome rath isn't born that could outgrabe me.

                       Nicol Williamson



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