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Can you believe it's May already, first with Mother's Day approaching, now Memorial Day, the first official holiday of the summer? I hope we all feel we have something worthwhile to show for the past four months of sliding down a weakened economy. It does make you realize Life isn't our jobs; Life is what we do with all the rest of our time and talents and whatever income the powers that be allow us to have.
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Contents
Monthly Tips:
Monthly lifestyle tip
Conference News
Technical Writing Tip of the Month
Most of us seem to send out documents that are in less than "finished" condition because no one will give us enough time to get them done right. That "no one" is usually sales and marketing who have already "sold" the product before development has even begun. And unless you work for a forward-thinking employer, no one bothered to tell Documentation that the new product was even being considered, let alone to bring you or even your manager in at Stage 1. You were very much an afterthought, until a potential customer balked and said they want to see the documentation first. All of a sudden, marketing's failure to plan ahead now constitutes your emergency. Or so they say. There are signs available about that.
So, who has time to create an index? The fact is: documentation without an index is useless, and sloppy, rushed documentation is worse than no documentation. Until companies face those realities, customers will continue to inundate tech support with questions that should be answered in the Getting Started Guide, Installation Guide, User Manual or Command Reference Manual, or whatever combination your employer provides. Getting a product to market ahead of the competition isn't smart marketing when it isn't ready to be out there. Customers are becoming increasingly fed up with being the manufacturers' Beta testers.
That being said, there's still the time problem with writing an index. And a real index is writing. It needs a lot of time allocated to do it properly. Some word processing programs and/or online help applications do a slick job of generating an index! And by itself, such an index is far better for the customer than nothing. But the results really still need an intelligent, thinking human being to fine tune it, to add very much needed cross references that a computer can't think of, to group topics efficiently, to combine sub-entries under main headings to avoid clutter and confusion, and so forth.
Indexing has very strict and tedious rules (that can drive a person crazy - much like picking lint off a carpet). These rules don't necessarily have to be followed exactly in the real world, but if you're indexing textbooks, serious reference books, or other arcane material, they do have to be followed. A good place to start is The Chicago Manual of Style (probably still section 17), and Indexing Books by Nancy C. Mulvany. The USDA has a correspondence course in basic indexing which many authorities consider to be a "must," but I found it a very annoying course myself. Some universities offer occasional courses. Go to http://www.asindexing.org/site/index.html, which is the web site for the American Society of Indexers. They list many very helpful publications and resources. You may want to consider becoming a member if you'll be doing a lot of indexing.
DISCOVERIES
A Journey Through Life
available now from www.buybooksontheweb.com
Also available at www.barnesandnoble.com
and www.amazon.com
Click here to read The Midwest Book Review's review of DISCOVERIES!
Writing Tip of the Month
Why do they tell me to write about what I know?
Writing about what we know is drilled into us subconsciously from the time we write our very first How I spent my summer vacation essay for Our Miss Brooks on an August or September morning when the world outside the classroom is still calling to us. Isn't that an awful experience when you haven't been anywhere or done anything?! And everyone else in class is writing about their cross-country trip to Nashville, Tennessee, or their Open House visit to where their Uncle Chuckie works at JPL in Pasadena. Wow! People really are sending stuff to the Moon and Mars and beyond!
Some kids manage to write about Grandma and Grandpa coming to visit, or a kind neighbor who took them out of the ghetto or barrio to see real trees and farm animals, maybe even to the beach for a day. But you, you were stuck home on the cement front steps or in the backyard with a bent peach tree and dead grass, doing nothing that you didn't do every other day of the year. The only difference was you didn't have to go to school every day. If someone dropped off a load of books at your house, it made all the difference in the universe. You escaped into other worlds, at least for a few hours each day. But if you write about that for Miss Brooks and she reads it aloud to the class, everyone else will snicker. So your pencil sits frozen until you glance at the clock. Then, in a panic, you make something up and turn in your paper when the bell rings.
The fact is we should write about what we know or what we can learn about. Heaven forbid that mystery writers have done all the things they write about! Or that techno thriller writers have all been spies, or disloyal jet pilots, or manic submarine commanders. But authors read and read and read before they ever start to write. They talk to people who are experts. They join associations related to their current choice of topic. They network. They research, research, research. And eventually, they have to sit down and start writing. Even then, some of the very finest literature ever written is about life in small towns. It is stories about real people living real lives and dealing with real problems.
These books are written from the heart; they are about character as much as they are about plot. And it takes the highest level of skill to write them. They are not potboilers. They are not throwaway books. But if critics call what you write a potboiler, and writing a potboiler is what gets you started as a writer, if it's what occasionally brings in a little cash to boost your spirits, then make it the best potboiler you can, something you'd be proud to show Grandma and Grandpa! Don't trade your birthright for a mess of pottage.
Lifestyle Tip of the Month
Defeating the Tyranny of the Telephone
Let's face it. The telephone is the bane and the miracle of our private life in today's world.
Blessings first. It's reassuring to know I can call for emergency help, assuming I can reach a telephone, either landline or wireless, and assuming that the 911 number is not tied up with routine calls. In pre-telephone days, it was much more difficult to summon help-- from anyone. Also, it saves time, money and disappointment to call ahead to find out if a store has an item in stock, to order tickets, or to make appointments or reservations.
Finally, for most people, the greatest blessing of the telephone is its ability to put us in touch with a friendly voice after a harrowing experience, or during an extended separation. With the increased and not-altogether-welcome mobility of this generation, our best friend or favorite sibling may be clear across town or thousands of miles away.
On the down side, it's been considered good manners to answer the telephone before its second or third ring, but that's impractical. It is also presumptuous of the caller even to expect someone to gallop through the house to answer such an imperious summons. Five or six rings is more practical, even though we can then expect the caller to demand "Where were you?!" Answering machines have preset choices, equally annoying. On the other hand, too often the caller lets the phone ring eight or ten or l7 times, perhaps waking us out of a deep sleep, and then it turns out to be a wrong number or worse, so an answering machine is better than dealing with that curse!
Caller ID service, though not free, is immensely helpful for many calls. However, Call Waiting is the rudest invention Ma Bell ever came up with! These days, if I'm put on hold more than once while a person takes another call, I hang up. We've experimented with Privacy Manager and it's almost not worth the trouble. PM can't identify overseas calls and that infuriates my mother and others when they call. Many clowns (read telemarketers and others) don't want to identify themselves. They just keep calling without stating who they are and become increasingly angry when we ignore their calls or send them to the answering machine. Too vain to listen to the instructions, of course. Having an unlisted phone number is only of temporary help, but worth trying.
Frankly, people seem not to realize that the person being called is the one who determines just how fast, or even if, the phone is answered. We have to be assertive and do it our way, because the person who pays the bill sets the rules!
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A Journey Through
Life, visit www.cafeshops.com/topazcove
Writer's Conferences
Check out the WinWriters website for details on upcoming and past conferences.
For an extensive list of other upcoming writer's conferences and workshops worldwide, visit the following website: http://writing.shawguides.com/ The Shaw Guides main website at www.shawguides.com has many other kinds of conferences and workshops listed.
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© 2002 Shirley Ann Parker. All rights reserved.
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