From the Editor

It seems that virtually everyone wants to be a writer. For many people, particularly those who are not writers themselves, the idea of becoming a writer conjures up images of Farley Mowat peacefully staring out into the open sea while engaged in deep thought, then enthusiastically looking down at his laptop computer while typing a carefully worded passage.

The reality for most professional writers, of course, is far from that romantic image. Those writers who are primarily involved in the area of technical documentation — as a growing number of writers are — face frequent challenges that are mundane at best, and frustrating at worst. Professional technical writers must not only battle the notion that documentation is just an afterthought in product development, but that documentation is an adversary to be conquered by technically-oriented people. Writers today must fight to be recognized as providing a unique value-added product that no amount of technology can replace. The reason that today's advancements in electronic desktop publishing will not replace the expertise of writers is that writing — whether for a novel, a magazine article, or a computer manual — is a creative pursuit that requires a special combination of skill and talent. A successful writer will possess both skill and talent: talent moves a writer forward in a writing project, while skill forces the writer to know where the project is going and where he or she wants it to go. In short, skill is what distinguishes writers among themselves.

This issue of Writer's Block sheds light on some of the challenges faced by today's professional writers and how aspiring, as well as established, writers can respond to these challenges. Our two features, "Talent vs. Skill in the Modern Writer" and "Fighting for the Ultimate Desktop" were written by writers who recognized and overcame these challenges more than 17 years ago when they decided to form a company that specialized in the production of technical documentation. To be successful in this field, it is clear that you must have a lot going for you: skill, talent, and an ability to fight for recognition of the value of your work. Sounds like any other profession, doesn't it?