RE: Poll: Is technical writing a sellout or fallback career?

["Downing, David" <DavidDowning -at- Users -dot- com>]

From: "Lauren" <lauren -at- writeco -dot- net>
Subject: RE: Poll: Is technical writing a sellout or fallback career?

How do you answer the question, "Is technical writing a sellout or
fallback
career?" with a yes or no answer?  Are "sellout" and "fallback"
synonymous?

------------------------------------------------------------

My interpretation of the question was "Is technical writing a career you
gotta settle for because you weren't able to do what you really wanna
do?"

Actually, my answer has to be a kind of "yes and no, but mostly no." On
the one hand, I did actually deliberately switch careers to go into
technical writing because I wished I was doing it instead of what I was
doing before. Before, I was a technical services librarian -- a
cataloger. (BTW< I've actually co-authored a book on cataloging, and the
promotional material for the book listed me as a "cataloger turned
technical writer," which I thought made me sound like a traitor to the
field of librarianship.)

On the other hand, what I REALLY wanted to do was write fiction. Maybe I
would have gotten somewhere in that field if I had kept at it -- and I
still would like to get back to it -- but the feedback I was getting
suggested I didn't quite have "the right stuff." I was told I could
write well, but didn't have the ability to create sympathetic
characters. (Actually, I've been kicking around an idea for a story
about a technical writer.)
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