Tag: technical writer

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do what you love

When I was younger, I used to hear the adage “Do what you love, love what you do,” but I don’t remember knowing too many people who loved what they did for a living. I don’t remember a single adult in my life as a child who didn’t spend more time complaining about the day job and trying to get away from their day job than they did talking pleasantly about coworkers or the actual work.

I was also led to believe that no one “normal” can make ends meet as a creative. All the musicians I knew had day jobs. The only writers I knew of were those lucky ones who escaped the day job by sheer talent and perfect time/place. Art was something for personal satisfaction, not something you could expect to make a living at.

I don’t think I set out to find a job that I loved as much as I do the technical writer career I sort of backed into by accident over twenty years ago, but here I am. It is so satisfying to know every day that I get to do something that I am remarkably good at, something that I love, something that allows me to impact not just the company’s end users, but the actual development of the product and how it is presented to those users.

That isn’t to say that there isn’t stress, or that I don’t have days where I just…don’t want to…but even on those days I still love what I’m doing.

I get to solve puzzles, troubleshoot software, wrestle with words and constantly refine language and it’s use one our product and in our online help. It isn’t something I’d thought I’d be doing when I left high school, but I feel it is exactly where I was meant to end up.

Happy Wednesday, Readers! I have so much to do, both for the day job and for the moving work. Tomorrow it’s a half-day’s work, and then I’m off to start the job of hauling my belongings from one place to the other. Take care of you and those around you. Be kind and be happy.

Photo by Christopher Beloch on Unsplash

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cat naps and work days

My cats are both curled up sleeping, one on the bed, the other on the back of the chair in the living room. They’re so deeply asleep that they didn’t even move when I went into the kitchen to refill my glass. Must be nice! Especially after they kept waking me up through the night with their antics.

It’s always amusing to me when my 13 year old cat is the one trying to get the 9 year old cat to play. Well, except when this is taking place in and around my bed at 2 in the morning.

Meanwhile, I gave up trying to go back to sleep at around 3:30 am and figured I might as well get up and get some work done.

I’ve been at it since, with a few breaks for things like food and taking pictures of the cats, sitting in meetings, and the like. Meanwhile, they’ve both been curled up into round little balls, snoring.

I’m fortunate to have a job like this. It’s amazing how much more I can accomplish when I don’t have to spend spoons on the commute and interacting with people.

When my work day is over, I think I’ll crack open a bottle of wine and see if I can convince one of the two fuzz monsters to cuddle.

Happy Thursday, Readers. I hope you get cuddles.

Photo by Mikhail Vasilyev on Unsplash (not my cat)

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wherein Natalie is a dork

The first few weeks on any job can be trying. There’s so much to learn about the company, the product and your role/team. For an introverted agoraphobe like me, there’s all the stress of meeting new people and orienting myself to the culture of the place.

It can be overwhelming, no doubt.

At this moment for me the fact that I can do it in the safety and comfort of my own home helps. If I was meeting all of these people face to face in this short space of time, I’m not sure how well I’d cope.

However, one of my favorite things about coming in to a new situation is the opportunity to make order out of chaos. I’m wrapping my hands around my first real project, one which will give me a lot of hands on with our product, as well as help me really get to know that project through reorganizing and updating the documentation.

As a tech writer, I am fairly used to this as we are often the last role a company thinks to fill, and the first to be let go when money gets tight, so documentation is almost always in a state of flux. It might even be one of the reasons I love being a tech writer.

This type of project really makes me happy. It’s probably related to the reasons I love a jigsaw puzzle or those solitaire games like Freecell, where your job is to organize the cards in a particular way.

I am well aware of my dorkishness, thank you very much.

Now, I’m off to grab a cup of coffee before I get a little Blood Witch writing in before the start gun goes off on my day of organization glee. I hope your Thursday is FABULOUS, Readers. May kindness be abundant.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

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let me tell you a story

There is something to be said about the ways a round of interviews during job hunting can help narrow your focus on what it is you do and why.

Sure, I get tired of talking about myself all the time (I’m not really all that interesting to be honest), but as you answer the same or similar questions, it really does help you hone an understanding of what you love about what you do.

The last few rounds of job-hunting helped bring a few things into focus.

  1. I love helping people to help themselves. That really is a lot of what technical writing is all about. My job is to make the instructions so clear that a user can do their job without needing to access customer support.
  2. I am a storyteller at heart. You may not think that’s something that pertains to technical writing, but you’d be wrong. The story I’m telling is about the user’s journey in using the product, or it’s about the product itself and how users can make the most of it.
  3. I am at my best as a writer, both technical and other, when I can get out of my own way and just let the words flow. It can be a challenge for me to turn off my internal editor, but my writing is always stronger when I do. Editing can come after the words are down.

This being my first week in this new job I’m on the other side of the story, the part where I am learning the story of the company and the product and what my place will be. It is a necessary step toward being able to then help write that story.

And that step needs more coffee! I’m off to start my day, Readers! I hope yours is awesome and filled with kindness.

Photo by Nong Vang on Unsplash

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new day job

There is something fitting about starting a new job on my birthday. It feels like new beginnings.

Today I start as a technical writer with a company called Quantcast. Which means I also start my new job with learning new things. A lot of new things. I already have 52 emails, most of which are meeting invitations and training classes I need to slog through.

My morning of course will be filled with onboarding stuff and meeting my team.

Then I’ll buckled down and start reading, taking training and all that good fun.

I also had a breakthrough that fixed a plot problem in the third Blood Witch book, so that is now back on track.

But for now, I need to go jump in the shower and then get second coffee started. DeathWish Coffee to the rescue!

Have a wonderful Monday, Readers!

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to office or not to office, I’ll just stay home, thanks

This has been a tough week, and I’m not even really sure why. But the good news is that we have made it to the Friday and there is only about 6.5 work hours between me and the weekend. I’ll admit to a certain amount of anxiousness about this whole “returning to normal” thing that is starting to happen.

To be fair, I really love the whole working from home dynamic, and would not welcome a return to the office even in “normal” times. It suits my agoraphobic, introverted self quite well. But I’ve noticed an increase in bedtime anxiousness, an inability to turn my brain off and put my phone down, almost as if I’m expecting some disaster to befall us while I’m asleep.

I’m happy to have found a company that values me and has no issues with the working from home forever dynamic. There are so many companies out there that treat their employees like high school kids who need to be controlled. Worse even, because even in high school they trust you to do your homework at home.

I get that working from home isn’t for everyone and some people need the daily interaction/schedule to do their best work, but I will never understand why people whose work can be done at home aren’t allowed by so many to do that.

In my experience, I get more done in less time at home than I ever do in the office, and I’m not burning my batteries with the commute and being social, so I have more me left over at the end of the work day.

Another thing I’ve noticed about working from home this last year is that it helps me treat my non-work writing as I treat my job, which means that I have times set aside to do that work, and I don’t see it as eating into my “free time” anymore. I don’t have to choose between writing and all the other things. There is this “this is writing time” and “this is time for other things” dynamic to my entire week, not just Monday through Friday.

It is, however, as I said, Friday. That means another cup of Death Wish Coffee and writing time that is on the horizon. I hope the day is good to you, Readers, and that your weekend is filled with love.

Photo by Alex Kotliarskyi on Unsplash

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technically speaking

In my day job, I write technical documentation. Well, that’s what the job description says anyway. A good chunk of what I actually do is editing, formatting and coding, and organizing information. To be fair, I get to do a decent amount of actual writing, especially when we’re getting ready to release new features.

I also spend a lot of time researching APIs, and documenting the attributes our software will be ingesting and making available (we’re a data technology company). Some weeks it feels like all I do is this part of the job.

Sometimes though, I get to wrap my hands around a nice juicy project like a complete docs redesign/reorganization. This week I am just wrapping up one of those. There is something so satisfying about pushing that Publish button at the end of something this large.

Of course, most of our users will never know the amount of work that goes into something like this, and only a few of my coworkers (mostly other writers) will get it either. But that’s okay. I don’t need recognition for these things. If I’ve done my job well, my reward comes in the form of no one reporting broken links or missing information.

I push that Publish button tomorrow on the last piece of this project tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have a little celebration on my own after, then I get to spend my weekend writing non-technical stuff again.

It’s not a bad way to live.

Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash

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the return of the day job x 2

It’s Friday. It’s the first Friday in a long time that I’ve spent an entire week working on paying work. I mean, yeah sure, eventually, hopefully, all the work I’ve put into my writing lately will pay off, but this is the immediate…or close to immediate, paycheck kind of work.

Did I mention that I started TWO full time jobs on Monday, or close to full time for the one. Job #1 is with a BI software company where I get to dig into my data analysis background and learn new things. Job #2 is straight up editing work. Granted, it’s editing work for a big company on a big project where the end client is a state government, so think dry and unexciting reading.

I ended up keeping both, even though Job #2 is a contract job through a contracting agency because neither one of them pays me what I’m used to…by a pretty significant amount. I fully anticipate that Job #1 will be my permanent job, and that the pay will increase as we move out of the current economic situation.

I’m really enjoying learning how to use new tools and combine my experience with new things, and at the end of that long day I can unplug my learning brain and edit for hours.

Means not much else is getting done, though my muse Brain is nibbling on something new, based on a dream a friend of mine had. She has the three main characters and the set up, some back story, but there’s a lot of world building to do, and a chunk of research, but she DOES love a good world build!

Just finishing up my first cup of coffee and getting ready to get onto Job #1. So, if I’m a bit scarce for the next little while, forgive me! I promise I’ll be around. Happy Weekend, Readers!

Cover Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

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the one with a migraine

Yesterday was not a good day.  I was feeling all over aches, bloating, nausea, stiffness in my back….just yuck.  As the day went on, I developed a headache and then, shortly after I had a little dinner, I threw up everything my tiny stomach could possibly hold.

I went to bed knowing that I would wake up with a migraine, and sure enough I did.  I have medicated and had some coffee and it’s dialed back a bit, but my stomach is still not very happy with me and I don’t dare venture out into the sun or head to the gym.

That means keeping myself in my nice dark office to get some work and some writing done.  I’m enjoying this part time work lifestyle, even if it means I don’t have quite as much money.

It also means I have time in my schedule for more freelance work, so if you’re looking for a writer or an editor, hit me up.  I’ll give you a good deal.

 

Photo by Carolina Heza on Unsplash

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trusting the universe to deliver

Sometimes, just when you think you have it all figured out, life comes along and delivers a solid punch right to the gut.  That was my life this week.  I’d just gotten a nice raise.  I had my budget for the next six months sorted, giving me all the spending money I would need for my planned vacations.

Then, out of nowhere, my company was hit with a financial blow and in order to survive it, they needed to make some hard decisions.  I was one of quite a number of people who were let go…laid off.  Unfortunately, the technical writer is always one of the first positions on the chopping block.

I’ve been here before.  In fact, I’ve been laid off of every job I’ve had since I left El Paso, Texas in 1999.  Of course, I get asked at times like these why I don’t pursue any of my other skill sets, since writers get the brunt.

I do have other skill sets.  I’m a good manager, of both projects and people.  I could brush up my rusty data analysis skills.  I could upgrade any of a number of skills.  But, writing and editing makes me the happiest me I can be.  Writing and editing is where my heart beats, and it always will be.

So, I’m on to the next opportunity, with a hope that it is at least half as great as the last one.  It’s a pretty good market right now, so I’m not overly worried.  I fielded a ridiculous number of recruiter calls yesterday, though most of them were for contract jobs in locations that I can not, in good conscience, commute to.  Driving anywhere during rush hour here in the San Francisco Bay Area is nuts, let alone to a job on the other side of the bay and south of me.

Today I am not going to worry.  I’m going to focus on the editing work I have in front of me, and maybe indulge in some Star Wars movies.  My next thing is out there.  I trust the universe to deliver it.

Happy Saturday, Readers!

Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash