Category: on Writing

A technical writer’s journey into creative writing

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So…I haven’t published a blog post for a long time. If you only follow me on this platform, you might assume that I’ve stopped writing.

In fact, writing now dominates my life more than ever. After faffing about the tech industry for a few years, trying product management, project management, UX design, UX writing, and software engineering, I started a technical writing job at Google in 2019.

The stable position at a tech giant, plus the forced quietude of the pandemic, gave me space to remember my dream. 

I’ve wanted to be an author for years. I wrote silly detective stories as a child and took creative writing classes in high school and college. But after receiving a few bad critiques on my experimental short stories in college, I caved to self-doubt and turned to non-fiction for solace. I was content to build my writing career on hard facts rather than creative expression.

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Why a writer is a word engineer

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PenTag-01
Hooray for HTML tags. I designed this in Adobe Illustrator.

When I tell people that I consider myself a logical person, they sometimes ask why I’m not more involved in engineering or math. After all, people usually associate “logic” with mathematical proofs that show you how to get from “ABC is a right triangle” to “a2 + b2 = c2.” But math and science don’t have a monopoly on logic. The more I study programming, the more I appreciate writing as a logical activity. Here’s how some principles of logic and engineering apply to the writing process:

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Why I’m considering a career in technical writing

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Now that I’m a college senior, I’ve been answering more and more questions about my post-graduation career plans. Thankfully, I’ve found a solid answer. But when I tell people I want to be a “technical writer,” I get lots of different reactions, from “that sounds boring,” to “what is that?” to “Hey, that’s an actual job!” So to explain the reasoning behind my choice more clearly, I compiled a list of reasons I believe my skills and interests are relevant to the role of the technical writer.

Before I begin, I must add that there’s so much more I need to learn about the technical communications field. I’m also keeping an open mind about my career options (marketing is also a good choice). But it’s nice to leave college with a fully articulated goal. So here goes:Read More »

How I write papers

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Everyone has a different approach to writing, and I would like to share my own process for writing papers, articles, blog posts, and essays. Whether you have or haven’t already perfected a system for approaching papers, this post merely provides my personal perspective. Here’s how to write papers, bunny style:

Disclaimer: This method only works if you have ample time to edit your paper. If you’re taking an essay exam, throw this method out the window and draft an outline before writing anything.  

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Why my blog posts are so infrequent

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desert
Infrequent and rare, like this piece of vegetation.

 

When I started this blog, I set a goal to post at least twice a week, on Sundays and Thursdays. That didn’t happen, so my goal became to post once every two weeks. Now I post twice a month.

So what happened?

Only one week after starting the blog, I realized just how unrealistic it was for me to publish twice a week. I would love to say that I was merely drowning in schoolwork and other duties. The truth is, I spent my free time getting addicted to new phone games or re-watching all nine seasons of How I Met Your Mother. Instead of writing, I immersed myself in other people’s worlds because I needed a break from my own.

I have long since accepted that as much as I love writing, I will still hate thinking about it. Sure, I enjoy it when the words start to fall in place, and I enter a magical flow where I’m inspired by everything I write and can’t stop typing out sentence after sentence. But pulling up the WordPress site on my computer? Tapping the WordPress icon on my phone? That’s usually another chore for tomorrow.

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Why I’m an “expert” on everything

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expert
Everything.

While I was researching some ways to improve my blog content, I found that many experienced bloggers propose “sharing your expertise” as a good way to gain more page views.

I wasn’t quite sure how to follow their advice. With only twenty years under my belt, I’m reluctant to call myself an expert on anything. I thought I knew a lot about music and writing, but UC Berkeley has managed to convince me otherwise. In fact, college has taught me that I know little to nothing about anything.

Fortunately, I still managed to compile this list of my “areas of expertise:”

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