atw: Re: Technical Writing for Retirees!
- From: "Jill Nicholson" <jpnicho@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 12:25:32 +1100
Martin I am one of the older members of the fraternity and I am still going
strong, writing and training and keeping up with what is going on via society
work.
Join your local ASTC and go to meetings is my advice - in other words network.
Also do a tech writing course - then you will at least have a beginning
understanding of what it involves. I can think of 2 very successful tech
writers who were school teachers so it is not an impossible change; I moved
from a Uni job teaching science. You probably have experience, people skills
and understanding - many young people lack these attributes and come from uni
believing they are crash hot writers and that is enough, actually it isn't.
Fifteen years ago I was teaching 1st year students the joys of Geology and now
I am on the threshold of my technical writing skills course becoming
internationally delivered.
It can happen, so give it a go and good luck to you.
Jill
Please contact me if you need further help, encouragement etc.
Jill Nicholson
N&H Communications
2 Park Ave
ROSEVILLE, NSW 2069
61+2+94174302
jpnicho@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.nhcommunications.com.au
----- Original Message -----
From: martin lindsay
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 8:13 PM
Subject: atw: Technical Writing for Retirees!
Maybe this is a slightly unusual request on this forum, however I'd be
interested in your views nonetheless if you can be bothered reading this.
I'm a babybooming (56 year-old) maths/physics teacher looking at
transitioning to retirement over the next few years. I've been looking at
various part-time jobs that I might take up in my retirement (not all of us
will be playing golf every day ...), jobs that I believe I can do that are
transferable from my current one, ie education/communication. I came across one
a few months ago quite by accident: back-of-book indexing. I don't know whether
you are familiar with it and its association (ANZSI):
http://www.aussi.org/index.html. Anyhow, I've since written a few indexes
voluntarily for a publisher, and I hope to build up this occasional business
over the next few years before I retire.
However, I don't feel there is a large market out there for freelance
indexers, so I am still looking for other ideas to support the odd indexing
job. The secretary of ANZSI recently sent us some information on ASTC and the
Swinburne Uni course on technical writing. There appear to be some similarities
between ASTC and ANZSI, and it got me wondering whether the idea technical
writing as an occasional retirement job would be worth pursuing given my
'advancing age' and background. My specific questions are these:
· $66m Question. Can you suggest how a novice 56 year-old can pick up
work (voluntary or otherwise) in technical writing over the next few years, or
do I need to complete a further qualification like the one at SUT or similar
for starters to help me? I have completed educational studies up to PhD level.
· Do employers outsource work who are working from home, or are most
technical writers employed in-house?
· Would it be best to improve my skills in programs like Adobe
Framemaker, Dreamweaver and RoboHelp or others (?) in the interim? I have been
teaching in an online environment for some years now so my computer skills are
reasonably good.
Any advice - blunt or otherwise - or people to contact for further
information would be most welcome.
Thanks again for reading this.
Martin
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