Piotr is a software engineer building things on the web. He has a special interest in tooling, automation, and testing. He is a creator of over 60 Ruby gems.
Thanks for sharing your process. I've never thought about playing the article back to me via speech processing - brilliant! Will try next time.
Similar to you, my first draft is a dump of all my thoughts about the topic. However, before I do that I like to create a high-level outline of what I want this article to be about. I find that without the outline my article may veer off the path. The outline helps me decided what things to keep and what to throw away. I'm not a professional writer at all, but I'm committed to getting better at this craft. So thanks for sharing!
I used to write an outline first and then write the draft. What I found, however, was that the article could end up being about what I want to say instead of what the reader (or the user) needs to know. This works perfectly fine for my personal blog posts but it doesn't really work for my technical documentation tasks. Hence I broke up my process into two distinct drafts: the first draft is a braindump of everything I want to say. Then I switch my mindset to that of the reader and use the audience analysis worksheet to figure out what the reader needs to know. And the rewrite the draft from the user's perspective.
(I admit it might be an unnecessary step for someone who doesn't need to craft professional tech docs, but it's what works best for me in my job as a tech writer.)
I admire your commitment to get better at writing! Good luck and I look forward to following your writing journey :)
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Thanks for sharing your process. I've never thought about playing the article back to me via speech processing - brilliant! Will try next time.
Similar to you, my first draft is a dump of all my thoughts about the topic. However, before I do that I like to create a high-level outline of what I want this article to be about. I find that without the outline my article may veer off the path. The outline helps me decided what things to keep and what to throw away. I'm not a professional writer at all, but I'm committed to getting better at this craft. So thanks for sharing!
Thank YOU for sharing your process :)
I used to write an outline first and then write the draft. What I found, however, was that the article could end up being about what I want to say instead of what the reader (or the user) needs to know. This works perfectly fine for my personal blog posts but it doesn't really work for my technical documentation tasks. Hence I broke up my process into two distinct drafts: the first draft is a braindump of everything I want to say. Then I switch my mindset to that of the reader and use the audience analysis worksheet to figure out what the reader needs to know. And the rewrite the draft from the user's perspective.
(I admit it might be an unnecessary step for someone who doesn't need to craft professional tech docs, but it's what works best for me in my job as a tech writer.)
I admire your commitment to get better at writing! Good luck and I look forward to following your writing journey :)