Decide what you want to be writing about.
There are many types and kinds of Technical Writers, ranging from those who do highly detailed, contractual-type stuff, to those who do consumer-goods manuals and materials. Get a true English degree (and I don’t mean something like English History), and then get a degree in the field which most interests you.
This shows your passion for the language, and a depth of interest in your chosen path.
Get a LinkedIn account going.
There are lots and lots of good discussions on there about this very thing; and if you don’t have your writing field narrowed down, this will help you figure out what interests you.
Supplement your skills with the ability to graphically imagine concepts.
Take Illustration courses to see how a grafic (yes, that’s spelled right – this is the context of print and visual arts) comes together. You can’t believe the number of people I’ve run across who cannot begin to think graphically to illuminate the text with a good illustration.
Learn FrameMaker.
‘Frame’ is the premiere tool of the Tech Writer. Anybody who tells you different is full of it. Or themselves. Word is nearly useless in laying out a document. Stuff slides all over the place, grafix end up in the wrong place or get distorted, anything more than a hundred to hundred fifty pages causes it to crash; the list goes on and on.
Learn the art of making a ‘book’ in Frame. Learn how to do templates, for templates are key to getting stuff done in record time in Frame. If you can handle Frame and revise templates to suit the need, you will be invaluable.
The above stuff is what WINS interviews!!
There is a spiritual side to this (or any) occupation.
I am a person of a quiet and deep faith, and now I recommend you get a copy of Cure for the Common Life, by Max Lucado. This book leads you through thinking clearly about what job you are meant to do in life. It helps you find that thing which God made you to do.
Because your career isn’t just work, it’s your ‘fit’ in the whole Creation of things. If you have a passion about what you do, you’ll do far better at it than you would if you just played it safe and did something else.
Read the book with an open mind. We have all been given specific gifts and a particular ‘bent’ for our lives, and the proper use of our talents and passions adds to the great tapestry of the Universe. We all need to seek our particular place in the whole; that place where you’re working and think, “I was made to do this!”
Remember humility.
You can learn something new, even from that one person who really rubs you the wrong way. Yep, that person who brings profane names to mind.
Step out of that mindset and learn to listen. Practice active listening, so you get the concepts correct. Tell the person you’re working with, “Now, I’m going to ask you what may seem like really dumb questions, and that’s just to test my own baseline knowledge. I want to make sure I’m tracking well with you.”
Snap answers are seldom fully correct.
Take the time to think, to allow that part of you that brings research, knowledge, and passion together to generate the most correct answer.
Notice I say ‘mostly correct’, as there seldom is such a thing as a perfectly right answer. Be humble enough to admit this.
Never be ‘married’ to your text.
Always be ready to revise. Your text is based on the knowledge of others, so you have to admit that nobody’s perfect, including yourself.
I wish you well in your endeavours.
Complex Made Simple 