As the saying goes the journey of a thousand miles begins with a step, and the same is true with my Technical Writing Journey. I've seen people list technical writing as one of their stacks in their Twitter bio and wondered what technical writing is all about and what technical writers do until I saw a tweet made by Bonnie about how he earned some cool cash by just writing a technical article. The tweet intrigued me and I got even more enthusiastic about technical writing. After all, who wouldn't be if they saw a tweet like that?
I began asking questions on how to get started with technical writing, but I never really got started because I didn't have a guide or any resource, to begin with. On Twitter, I met with a friend Ronald who recommended Bonnie's booklet on how to get started in technical writing. That was extremely beneficial.
The Bootcamp
I was still going through the ebook shared by a friend when SCA Bootcamp appeared as an angel. She Code Africa, or SCA for short, is an African tech community for girls and women. Yes, I called it an angel because it arrived at precisely the right time for me.
The Bootcamp was centered around 3 tracks: front-end development, UI/UX design, and technical writing. I'm a frontend developer, but I opted to enroll in technical writing so that I could learn more about the field and, even if I never pursue it, at least have a basic understanding of what it entails. The Bootcamp was scheduled to start on the 16th of May, and run for a month. Being all excited, I eagerly awaited the start date.
The Start
The Bootcamp kicked off with a google onboarding meeting on the 16th of May, 2022. I was buzzing with anticipation. I could see my dream of becoming a technical writer coming true. In the session, coordinated by our technical writing lead Miss Chidimma Oduenyi, a vibrant member of the SCA UNN chapter, the program outline and the highlights of the Bootcamp were shared. Also, there was a short session on how to open a medium and hashnode account. Funny enough, I already had the hashnode app and signed up with them a few months ago, but I had no idea what it was for. Perhaps the stars are aligned with my intentions. The schedule of events for the Bootcamp was also shared before the session ended.
The Workshop
Following the onboarding session, a three-day knowledge-packed workshop was held consecutively. The guest speaker Cynthia Peter who is also our tutor for the Bootcamp, a technical writer, and a developer advocate explicitly thought about how to get started in technical writing, important sessions of an article, how to curate an article, sustaining the inflow of ideas, career positioning as a technical writer, finding a niche and a whole lot more.
She also introduced some tools that would come in handy as a technical writer.
Time to write
The actual thing came after the three-day workshop. It was time to write my first technical article. I picked up my pen and paper, feeling a little overwhelmed, and began writing. I had no idea writing was more difficult than it sounds.
The first task was to write an article on "The importance of community in building a tech career." I had belonged to a tech community for a year so I had to think out the benefits I had enjoyed since belonging to a tech community. I kept reminding myself of the things I'd learned during the workshop. I had to make an outline for my article, and that to me is the hardest part of writing.
We were taught during the session that browsing is an essential skill in producing a good piece, so I did some research online and came up with some ideas. Surprisingly, I was writing nonstop and was almost through with my article. It wasn't as simple as it sounded, but I got over the hurdles. I was extremely proud of the article, even though it was not without flaw. In my whole life, I have never authored a single article.
It was live!!!
After a series of reviews, I felt it was time to go live. I hit the publish button and boom it was live. I was ecstatic. Meanwhile, we have a culture of submitting tasks on a specified day of the week and a review session comes the next day in a zoom meeting with our tutor. I always looked forward to it because I learn new things from the review session. Cynthia has a knack for spotting mistakes in articles at just a glance. She'd been there before us, so I didn't expect less.
More tasks
Following the session, a new task was assigned. "The Metaverse." One of my favorite aspects of technical writing is that it forces me to learn new topics. I'd heard of the metaverse before, but had only skimmed over the definition; having to write about it forced me to do more in-depth study, and I was already learning a lot, VR, AR, MR, NFTs, and a slew of other buzzwords. The Metaverse was a broad topic, and writing about it took a lot of my energy. But, in the end, I triumphed, and the review came again.
The last task was SEO. Like the previous ones, I saw myself learning so much in a short while. I became particularly fascinated by this topic and I intend to delve deeper into it when I have less on the table, to become an SEO expert one day. Cynthia commended us as we have greatly improved through the weeks. She encouraged us to make a weekly or monthly schedule for writing and engage in others articles.
Final thoughts
Enrolling in this Bootcamp is the smartest decision I made last month. Indeed, as I stated in my first piece, tech communities are crucial. If I hadn't been a member of SCA, I would have missed out on this opportunity. These past few weeks have taught me a great deal. I was picking up a lot of new information.
Participating in this bootcamp made me meet amazing people. I made new friends on hashnode who were always ready to put me through. Great articles from others in the bootcamp also motivated me to putting more effort.
Technical writing not only provides you with fresh information but also allows you to gain a deeper understanding of it. After all, you can't teach or write about what you don't know. I intend to continue writing articles and hope to improve over time.
The following are the articles I wrote throughout my month at Bootcamp:
Kindly read and drop a review in the comment section.
Enjoy!!!