Formatting Freak - long

[Dianne Blake <write-it -at- HOME -dot- COM>]

Am I the only one out there that gets in trouble when they receive
documents that are screaming for reformatting and clean-up (to something
more readable, something more aesthetically pleasing)?

I've been a technical writer since the 1970s and have been writing
technical training materials since the late 1980s.  I've been a
programmer, a project manager, a consultant, and have enjoyed a short
career in the document management arena.

With all this background I find I still love document formatting and
clean-up the most (I fell in love with it during my two years on a
document design project in WordPerfect).

My initial reaction is to quickly skim through the document for content
(is it worth the time to clean-up).  Then I feel compelled to clean-up
the document as I read it again.  I just have a serious difficulty
reading it when I stumble upon readability issues.  What is more - the
worse it is the more inclined I am to massage the material, format the
headings, insert headers and footers, clean-up the spelling, etc.

Even when I am writing from scratch, I just can't sit at a blank piece
of paper for very long.  I have to work with a style guide.  If one
doesn't exist, I can sit for hours designing just the right styles,
fonts, and page layout. Once this is done, I can write for hours and
hours on end without annoying formatting distractions.

Creating the style guide usually gets my creative juices going so well
that I've written as many as 3 chapters in a day after a bout of
formatting.

Maybe I am missing my calling.  Does anyone know of a venue that is in
serious need of formatting freaks? Or, maybe I just needs a good
psychiatrist.

-Dianne Blake
write-it -at- home -dot- com

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