As a tech writer, I’ve probably written, "choose File, Open" or some permutation of that phrase about 7,000 times. Some days, you just want to write something else. But as my father is fond of saying, "that’s why they call it work."
Virtually all of the writing I’ve done is non-fiction. My portfolio is filled with lots of technical writing and how-to stuff. No best-selling (or any other) novels have my name on them. But hey, let’s face it, lots of people need non-fiction, how-to writing and will pay for it.
A good technical writer has to have a high tolerance for boredom. You need to be willing to grind through that ever-so-tedious procedure and methodically write out each step, so that someone reading it for the first time actually can follow it. You also need to care about the little details like part numbers and punctuation. When someone is trying to put Carriage Bolt (A) into Support Frame (B), all those letters and terms need to be correct or some poor person reading the instructions is going to end up extremely frustrated.
Non-fiction writing isn’t very subjective. No literary critic is going to turn up his or her nose at the stuff I write. There just are not very many "tech writing critics." The writing is either easy to understand and makes sense, or no one can make any sense out of the writing and the writer should be fired. (The IRS comes to mind as a fine example of folks who can produce reams and reams of bad writing.) Sure there are varying degrees of good and bad technical writing, but for the most part it works or it doesn’t.
Unlike fiction writers, I am not under pressure to write the Great American Novel (with important capital letters). But I’ve always wondered if fiction writers get bored too. Any type of writing can be hard. Once you’ve figured out the cool plot twists and all the fun stuff about the characters, getting down to the actual business of writing sounds suspiciously like work.
So on a lazy Friday afternoon, I know that I may not be writing the Great American Novel, but hey, I just did an invoice. And it’s quitting time 😉