Category: Freelancing

  • New Workshop at Portland Write the Docs

    New Workshop at Portland Write the Docs

    I’m excited to announce that I’m  going to be presenting a workshop associated with Write the Docs in Portland! Write the Docs is an exciting community-based conference that draws in a mixture of technical writers, support folks, independents of all stripes, API writers, open-source developers, and a wide variety of other types of people. We…

  • Publish and pull managers

    Publish and pull managers

    @kwugirl has done some great work around ask culture and guess culture (https://storify.com/kwugirl/ask-vs-guess-culture-communications-rubyconf-portu), and how frustrating it can be when you are framing communication the wrong way so that you are constantly rubbing on someone. Ask culture says that it’s ok for someone to make a direct request for a favor, and it’s equally ok…

  • Many hands make a messy wiki

    Many hands make a messy wiki

    In October, I attended HydraConnect. To my relief, it was not a networking event for evil comic book characters, but rather an in-depth conference for people running the Hydra software, which is used in higher education (and other library-like places) to organize digital collections. When I walked in the first day, I didn’t even know that…

  • Contract additions

    Contract additions

    Last year, I signed 4 contracts for work-for-hire. I estimate that will be average-to-low going forward, but I don’t have enough data points. Every time I work with a company, I come up with something I want to remember to specify for the next time, or at least attempt to negotiate for. Summary: Work-for-hire does…

  • The three documents you ACTUALLY need first

    The three documents you ACTUALLY need first

    Because I work as only-writer for so much of my time, I forget that I’m not just a lone technical writer, and I’m not just an indie, but I’m in an odd category beyond that. Because no one who hires me really knows what a technical writer does, interviewing is often turned on its head…