September 29, 2006
Endurance Technical writing
I am a Freelance technical writer. I make good money at it. I bid for projects, get the contracts and I write them to completion on time, and I get paid. How is possible to make a living doing freelance technical writing? Well, I’m writing this article to tell you not only is it possible to make a living as a technical writer, it is possible to do quite well financially, keep employed and keep writing about interesting stuff for a long time. As a technical writer it is possible to cross many borders, and learn new things in multiple industries and gain fantastic experience while you’re on the job. There are many books and articles already out there on how to become a technical writer. I am a technical writer and I’ve worked in the aerospace industry for most of my technical writing career.
Many types of writers are depicted as a bit eccentric, not fitting into “the mold” that the world wants to fit them in to. In many cases this is true even for technical writers. They don’t fit “the mold.” They are not your average nine-to-five workers in a company. They tend to flourish when given the independence of contacting their services to an employer on their own terms – work at home schemes, freedom of access into departments that they have no other qualification to enter into other than as a technical writer wishing to find ou how and whay stuff works and how best to portray the reason for being of compex equipment or processes in a very clear and easy to understand way. They tend to operate best in situations where they can circumvent the normal day to day business activities in order to gather information, to do research, to sit and talk with engineers and technicians about how equipment is supposed t work and how it’s best maintained, and of course, to write, a lot. Technical writers tend also to be concerned with exactness and clarity in their writing to almost freakish levels. On top of all that technical writers
Technical writers are a unique blend of coffee in that they thrive in the spaces between the day to day business processes and yet with their access to virtually every department, have a better overview of the organization than most of the middle managers and in fact, likely a good part of the upper management. Technical writers are expert communicators when they write, this ability is enhanced further when they’re given the environment, the tools and the time to do so. Trouble is most companies don’t know what to do with you when you are their technical writer. They don’t know where to put you. They don’t know how to categorize you. This is all well and fine since it is exactly this sort of ether to operate in that you need for the ‘bringing to light’ of what a product means for the masses or bringing to light of how a product or service is supposed to be used by the masses or whoever it is you’re writing for. However, because of the difficulty of categorizing you or knowing what to do with you another difficulty presents itself at payday. It becomes the question of: “what is the right sort of reward for this unique ability to communicate so very well on paper?” What is fair? What is just?
No we’re not typists but hey, we type faster than most‘yer typists, yeah. We’re not secretaries or clerks, though we know the office procedures and business procedures, having written them, better than your secretaries and better than your clerks. No, we’re not middle managers, either. But we know more about how the department and how to run it because we listen to everyone every day tell us about how and why they do their jobs then we write that all down in procedures and processes manuals, listen to and propose changes as we see the big picture.
No we’re not Engineers who design things but we are intimately familiar with everything about the designs the engineers in your organization design and we saw it from concept to product in the same way your engineers did. But too we saw further than your engineers because where their purpose of designing something that works ends our purpose of asking whay it was designed for whom was it designed, how exactly doe it work for the customer and how does using one of these designs make things better and easier for the customer in life, begins.
Many types of writers are depicted as a bit eccentric, not fitting into “the mold” that the world wants to fit them in to. In many cases this is true even for technical writers. They don’t fit “the mold.” They are not your average nine-to-five workers in a company. They tend to flourish when given the independence of contacting their services to an employer on their own terms – work at home schemes, freedom of access into departments that they have no other qualification to enter into other than as a technical writer wishing to find ou how and whay stuff works and how best to portray the reason for being of compex equipment or processes in a very clear and easy to understand way. They tend to operate best in situations where they can circumvent the normal day to day business activities in order to gather information, to do research, to sit and talk with engineers and technicians about how equipment is supposed t work and how it’s best maintained, and of course, to write, a lot. Technical writers tend also to be concerned with exactness and clarity in their writing to almost freakish levels. On top of all that technical writers
Technical writers are a unique blend of coffee in that they thrive in the spaces between the day to day business processes and yet with their access to virtually every department, have a better overview of the organization than most of the middle managers and in fact, likely a good part of the upper management. Technical writers are expert communicators when they write, this ability is enhanced further when they’re given the environment, the tools and the time to do so. Trouble is most companies don’t know what to do with you when you are their technical writer. They don’t know where to put you. They don’t know how to categorize you. This is all well and fine since it is exactly this sort of ether to operate in that you need for the ‘bringing to light’ of what a product means for the masses or bringing to light of how a product or service is supposed to be used by the masses or whoever it is you’re writing for. However, because of the difficulty of categorizing you or knowing what to do with you another difficulty presents itself at payday. It becomes the question of: “what is the right sort of reward for this unique ability to communicate so very well on paper?” What is fair? What is just?
No we’re not typists but hey, we type faster than most‘yer typists, yeah. We’re not secretaries or clerks, though we know the office procedures and business procedures, having written them, better than your secretaries and better than your clerks. No, we’re not middle managers, either. But we know more about how the department and how to run it because we listen to everyone every day tell us about how and why they do their jobs then we write that all down in procedures and processes manuals, listen to and propose changes as we see the big picture.
No we’re not Engineers who design things but we are intimately familiar with everything about the designs the engineers in your organization design and we saw it from concept to product in the same way your engineers did. But too we saw further than your engineers because where their purpose of designing something that works ends our purpose of asking whay it was designed for whom was it designed, how exactly doe it work for the customer and how does using one of these designs make things better and easier for the customer in life, begins.
Regress to progress
To be careful when writing is such a lofty thing to achieve for me. My writing process has always been a bit messy. I forget to go back and check essential things like whether all the words that should be there are actually there and whether some words are there that should no longer be there. These things I miss. I also miss little essentials like a comma here and a capital there, however I’m pretty good at ending sentences with a period at this point.
I’m still in Dubai. I’m forty and still haven’t done anything real with my life yet. That’s how I feel at least. I’m forty and I haven’t significantly contributed to anything in any sort of a lasting way in this world nor have I been innovative enough o have created something from nothing that contributes significantly to the progress of my generation or the ones after it. The closest I think I have come to innovation at this late point in my life is the very activity I am carrying out right now - stringing two and more words together on a line across my computer to CREATE. But if looked at closely, one could reveal the shallow secret of all writing in that writing borrows from all the great and minor compositions read previously.
I’m still in Dubai. I’m forty and still haven’t done anything real with my life yet. That’s how I feel at least. I’m forty and I haven’t significantly contributed to anything in any sort of a lasting way in this world nor have I been innovative enough o have created something from nothing that contributes significantly to the progress of my generation or the ones after it. The closest I think I have come to innovation at this late point in my life is the very activity I am carrying out right now - stringing two and more words together on a line across my computer to CREATE. But if looked at closely, one could reveal the shallow secret of all writing in that writing borrows from all the great and minor compositions read previously.
