I made the move to technical writing back in May after 10 years in newspapers/wires/web. I nearly doubled my base rate, and thanks to copious overtime I’ve already made more in the six-plus months on this job than I did all of last year at the old web gig, for about a quarter of the stress.
I know for certain, having talked to my boss about it, that my background in journalism made me the slam-dunk hire. They needed someone who can do a little bit of everything all at once, and once she saw that I had extensive page design experience as well as writing on deadline, I went to the top of the interview list.
As Wendell said, it can be -- and for me it often is -- incredibly boring. The writing is formulaic and dry, and the subject matter will usually be something you know very little, or even nothing about. But you sit down with subject matter experts, get them to walk you through the process and you put it down in a manner that an average Joe off the street can follow.
I’m fortunate in that my job also has an element of internal communications and I get to write for the company newsletter, a welcome change from procedures. I mentioned earlier I get a lot of overtime, which is unusual in the industry -- most jobs are an 8-to-5 deal. But I work for a contractor in the oil industry, and I frequently travel to Alaska’s North Slope where I work crazy hours -- and get fodder for a blog I write about life in the Arctic Circle, which helps alleviate the boredom of the writing I get paid to do.
Technical writing will never be as exciting or professionally rewarding as journalism, but journalism was never going to provide me with a decent living, so I think in the end I’ll come out ahead.
