Conceit, or,How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Competition (long) -Reply

[Lisa Comeau <COMEAUL -at- CSA -dot- CA>]

Well...hmmm...um...er...ah...hmmm...well...

After reading this post, I find that I am at a loss for words because Eric said them all. I was about to jot off a zippy reply to all of those people who say "you can't teach an old dog new tricks", and that "writers are born, not made", but I don't think I have to anymore.

One of the things I found when I first began to subscribe to this list (about 6 months ago) was the opinion that many posters had on this topic. I lurked for quite awhile because I feared that I'd get flamed for not being a "real techwriter" - which seems to happen alot here.

I remember a few threads that got downright nasty when someone asked a "newbie" question on how to get into the field, or some such "nonsense". And I remember quite a few offline responses I got saying how I couldn't make it in techwriting because I didn't have a techwriting degree or some other such "nonsense". Not to mention the flames I put up with when my opinions differed from a "more experienced" writer's.

I think that we have to understand (yet again) that techwriting is too diverse to be labelled, and that maybe in *your* neck of the techwriting woods, someone needs more than an ability to type to be a writer, but in someone else's, that may be a good starting point. (If that's what makes you feel good...)

Think of technical writing as a tree. It is constantly growing and changing, adding limbs, branches, and twigs. It gets new buds every spring, and throws off its leaves in the fall. Sometimes, a family of birds, new to the area, builds a nest. Some of them stay for years, others move on. Does that mean that the leaves and birds which are new to the tree cannot survive in it? NO! Some will, some won't, and every fall, the chaff falls to the wayside. (Pardon the mixed metaphor...) It's natural, and it's a
fact of life.

Let me just remind all of you that this is a place to be supportive (as far as I know) and that closedmindedness in *any* field holds us back. I am reminded of the days when I managed a coffee shop, and would hire students with no previous experience rather than people to whom making cappuccino was old hat.

Why? Because inexperience can often mean an eagerness to learn, and a fresh perspective. It also means that there are no bad habits attached to the way they do things. It can also mean that they become the type of employee *I* want because I "mold" them. And they don't tell the rest of the world that "This is the way it is, don't change it because I'm too into the way *I* have always done it everywhere else I have worked, and my word is law" like some people on this list tend to do.

Pardon my little vent, but this "wanna-be-techwriter"  "newbie" with nothing but  a half-finished English degree and 1 1/2 years of computer school seems to have no problem communicating ideas other than the fact that she "talks" too much.

And I *don't* want your jobs, I'm very happy with my own, thanks. I *do* want to be better at it by getting support from other people whose opinions and experience I respect.

Lisa Comeau
IS Super-User/Trainer
Certification and Testing Division
Canadian Standards Association
Rexdale, ON
comeaul -at- csa -dot- ca

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=