Posts Tagged "writing"

A Life of Its Own: An Essay About an Article That Was Never Published

Last year I worked on a news article that showcased certain technologies at my work. The news article was an assignment, the kickoff of a series of articles. I worked especially hard on it, as it was the first one to introduce the series. I came up with a sensible structure, gathered interesting facts and information, (Read more...)

A Reverse Approach to Help Authoring: Writing Documentation Post-Release

When I first started as a technical writer, a senior writer taught me how to write documentation. Her approach, which aligns with the traditional way of doing technical writing, generally followed these steps: Get involved as early as you can in the software development process. As soon as prototypes are available, or a functioning development (Read more...)

A Lifetime of Reading Versus a Lifetime of Writing

This past week I traveled to Florida to help clear out my dad’s house. He recently fell and hit his head, and now he’s in a rehabilitation center while his memory recovers. It may take him months to return to his normal self. When he does, we want him to live closer to my sister (Read more...)

Writing My Last Chapter

I was talking with my wife’s uncle last week about writing strategies for fiction, and whether it’s better to outline everything ahead of time, or figure it out as you go. The former is apparently called a “plotter” method and the latter a “pantser” method (called pantser because you fly by the seat of your (Read more...)

Why Is Corporate Blogging So Hard?

I’m not sure entirely why, but corporate blogging can be quite difficult. On my professional blog, I can post several times a week in the spare moments of my days, sitting down for 30 minutes here or an hour there and have some substantial content to show for it. But at work, I can spin (Read more...)

What Does It Mean to Be Innovative?

Last week while attending the STC Summit, I learned that MindTouch named my blog, I’d Rather Be Writing, the most innovative blog in technical communication. In their post, 2011 Technical Communication Innovation Award Winners, they write, This honor is bestowed upon long-time technical documentation professional Tom Johnson for creating some of the best — and (Read more...)