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Subject:RE: Questions about the Technical Writing field From:"Andrew Dugas" <dugas -at- intalio -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 12 Sep 2002 21:28:06 -0700
> 1. How/why did you become a professional writer?
Filthy lucre! Actually I had always been a professional writer. I just never
got paid much for it until I called myself one and entered the corporate
world.
> 2. What is your job title? job description?
Senior Technical Writer. As the sole writer at an upstart startup, I catch
all kinds of assignments, but mostly it's scrambling to document the
products as they lurch toward maturity and stability. I have to balance
updating existing and creating all new from scratch.
> 3. What percentage of your time is spent writing, editing,
> or presenting?
Zero presenting these days. I'd say it's 60/40 of writing-editing to
learning the products and technologies (including climbing around broken
features)
> 4. What types of writing, editing, and presenting do you do?
User and admin manuals aimed at a quasi-developer audience. This is very
challenging because you can't smart it up or dumb it down; you have to do
both!
> 5. Who are your audiences and what are their needs?
Quasi-developers and tech savvy business analysts. Because our products are
so bleeding edge, they need straightforward instruction laced with
explanation. But the explanation needs to be not enough to slow down the
procedures and not so little they don't understand exactly what's going on.
Tough row to hoe!
> 6. What things do your audiences expect from your documents or
> presentations?
See above. Mostly they need clear information that doesn't require a lot of
jumping around.
> 7. What is your biggest writing-related challenge on the job?
Building a big doc catalog all by my lonesome even as the product shifts and
stirs endlessly. You learn what to leave for last and what can be done right
now.
> 8. What about deadlines? How do they influence the way
> your write on the
> job?
Things are so tight, deadlines are used to tell me what WON'T make it into
the doc. In truth, my docs would be better had I more MORE time. But there
it is.
> 9. What standard and predictable processes (writing techniques,
> organizational templates, heuristics for brainstorming,
> etc.), if any, do you
> employ in profession-related writing?
I would perish had I not first set up well-developed Frame and Webworks
templates. That investment in time has paid itself back a hundredfold. I
have similarly finetuned processes for capturing and dressing up
screenshots.
> 10. What are the frustrations/rewards of your work?
Not having stable product to work with. Sure, I can document how they tell
me it'll work, but I like to go through it myself. It's hard to meet
milestones when a certain feature is out of whack. That's mostly my own
fault, though: I work with apps I build myself out of CVS and sometimes I
haven't updated a certain set of files that I should have. But if I don't
have ready builds to work with?
At least they do not hold me to schedules I cannot meet if the dependencies
aren't there.
> 11. What advice do you have for students?
Go to school, get a degree, and a good strong foundation. Writing skills,
tech skills, etc. Then spend four or five years travelling or partying or
otherwise pursuing your own dreams and chasing your own stars. Forget about
the career or 401(k) or getting rich by age 35.
Go read poetry on a Greek beach, work on a sheep ranch in New Zealand, suck
down ayahuasca tea in the Amazon or just slack off. Open a cafe or soup
kitchen or publish a literary magazine.
Forget about money - you only need rent, gas, and food. And beer, probably.
Sow some wild oats, as an old uncle of mine would say.
Believe me, you will be older for many more years than you will be young. Go
out there and find yourself while you have the freedom and flexibility to do
so, establish who you are so at least you are not a stranger to yourself.
Later on, when you settle down and get the career going to support the
family you accidentally started and feed the delightful rugrats tearing
around the living room... Well, you'll have some interesting stories to tell
and the smug satisfaction of having actually done some free living when it
was time to do so. To every there is a season and a purpose.
My opinion, anyway.
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