Well, it took some time, but the writing assignments have arrived. I mean, there were writing tasks before this week, but things hit hard this time around. Writing (the dark blue) really exploded later in the week, and the research leading up to some of that writing took up a big chunk of the front of my week.
But, that chart isn’t really helpful in saying what a content writer does, which is the whole point of these posts. I mean, of course I write, right? But, like the Bobs are asking above, what would I say it is that I write around here?
Big Things Afoot
It might be more helpful to break these tasks out by individual project. The spreadsheet I use to track my time includes tags for the task I’m doing (like Writing or Research) along with specific projects that task might be for. Unfortunately, some of those projects are for products or other things that haven’t been announced yet, so there’s some redaction below.
So, there’s a few writing projects up there. One is purely web content (some pages about a product family and some industry stuff), one is a social media campaign (which I’ve got a blurb about over at my how-to site, RhetoricalStuff.com), and the other is a bigger project with a lot of different parts.
Wednesday became pretty chaotic, since two of those projects kicked off that day. There’s a lot of lead-time before some projects begin, and since I’m still new around here, folks have made sure to give me plenty of warning when something is going to get assigned to me. The web content project is something that I was told about over a month ago, so it got moving pretty quick. The bigger project was announced last Friday, so I had a chance to start researching it Monday and Tuesday.
You might notice that my ability to take breaks is still basically non-existent. That’s a me problem more than anything. I’m still working on finding a groove, and last week, I packed lunches that were a little too easy to eat while I worked.
Writing for Web Content (~10 hours, including meetings)
Writing for the web is fun. I used to teach it. (I don’t know if that link will remain live for much longer, but I’m still paying for the domain, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). This project is a little more challenging because the stakes are different than, say, a blog, but most of the moving parts are still there. It’s a little more like technical writing than most web writing: I have an audience with a problem, and I need to get them the information or resources necessary to solve it. Like web writing, though, I have to assume my audience has a short enough attention span that they’ll go back to Google if they don’t find their answer quickly.
I’ll hold off on detailing this one too much until the content is live, then I’ll document things over at Rhetorical Stuff. For now, I’ll just say that the approach is very much like starting a technical writing task.
Writing for Social Media (1 hour, finalizing)
Writing for social media is tough. I was asked to generate a number of social media posts and find some content to link for each one. The challenge was something that we talk about in summary writing assignments: each platform gives you a different amount of space before truncating or rejecting your post. Companies pay big money for analytics that tell them that a …See More tag is rarely clicked, so the entire message has to fit in a few dozen words (25 for Facebook and LinkedIn, about 160 characters on Instagram, 200 characters on Twitter). We have social media managers who handle the social posts, but the Writing team sometimes gets to generate base content for them.
When your employer produces things that offer “high-speed distance and directional protection” in electrical relays, that limit arrives pretty quickly.
Now, add other analytics-based restrictions (like not mentioning the company name and linking content that’s still fresh for social media shares), and you’ve got a fun challenge.
I started this project over a week ago, and it’s just in the finishing stages now. I’m hoping I’ll have some posts to share in the coming weeks.
Bigger Project (~17 hours)
The big project took the majority of my time. I’m mostly revising existing documents, but I’m writing about a product and features that I’m just learning about (remember all that research time on Monday?) On Thursday, I worked through a few documents pretty closely to update all the differences between a few configurations and, in one document, emphasize how they fit the needs of various customer groups.
This has been a fun project, even if it’s a little higher stress than the rest. It’s on a pretty tight timeline, so like the social media posts, I’m hoping to have something to share here before much longer.
Not Exciting?
This was the big transition week. No one said anything, but it’s the thing everyone described: suddenly, there will be lots of stuff to do. The question now might be how I can manage it. In academic settings, you work on academic time. As a student, once the term or the semester is over, it’s done. Everything is graded, and you can throw away what’s left of the to-do list. As a teacher, the entire list can’t be thrown away (there are institutional reports and projects to work on, courses to plan, assignments to tweak, etc.), but the end of a term is still a punctuation mark.
I don’t have that anymore. The juggling continues, and the only break I’m going to get is the one I build by finishing my tasks.
Well, that and the other break that I came here for: everything is still done at 5pm. When I came home on Thursday, I did exactly zero work. Hell, when I came home last Friday, when I’d been told about the new Big Project coming my way, I did zero research or preparation for it. I made a note on my work computer where to begin on Monday morning, and that’s what I did.
Bored out of my gourd, and I’m loving every minute of it.
