The other day I was honored by Kiski School, my alma mater, to speak about honor, and also journalism and freelance tech Writing to an AP english class.
I asked their teacher, Ms. Sherrier, to get some questions from the boys for me beforehand if possible. Se did, and here are their questions, and answers from me.
You have written for a variety of audiences, varying from engineering companies to social media platforms. How does your approach to writing change depending on the subject matter?
A Writer always writes to the form and subject. If it’s a newspaper feature story, that is a certain style based upon the publication… if it’s a business magazine covering construction, a different style there, too, based upon the needs, demands and lingo of the publication. And different objectives are in question, as well. Some stuff you write is meant to inform, some to entertain, some is meant for both. And some is meant to convince and sell…. That said, you can get away with a lot more as a journalist than you used to get away with. You can be more creative at least sometimes, I think. Narrative style, and personal perspectives, are much more in vogue than in the past.
Corporate writing also is changing. Styles of writing, even for corporations, are much more informal than in the past, due partly to the effect of the internet.
The amount of space and the type of space—be it a landing page on a website or a 3,000-word hole to be filled with verbiage about technical facts in a report with graphs and other images—also dictates the style.
Is grammar and syntax important even if it may sacrifice the meaning you are trying to get across when writing?
Proper grammar and syntax are essential. But they also should serve the story, and even the sentence, rather than the other way around.
What was the most interesting topic you have ever written about in your opinion? And why?
Stuff I have written about my family has been most interesting to me, though most of that stuff is still unpublished. Why, because I am a narcissist…. But, years back I wrote a corporate history for Michael Baker International—a large engineering/construction group—that covered the company’s 75 years in business. It was fascinating, since I learned so much about engineering, design, construction, and much of it in the context of US history and world history.
If you were never a journalist, what career would you have gone into? Or was becoming a journalist always the career you wanted to enter?
I had an interest in journalism from a young age, but really got into it because I wanted to write, and it was the quickest way in for me at the time. But if I hadn’t, I would have gotten into marketing and public relations, which I also do as a freelance writer these days and have done for a long time for clients including Facebook, Xerox, Rolls-Royce and many others. There’s a lot of writing and media contact and selling and conceptualizing and a lot of crossover in the skillsets. Plus, I always had an interest Public Relations.
What accomplishment are you most proud of, and why?
Transforming myself from a seasoned newspaper journalist, in a dying industry, into a business journalist and tech writer is something I still kind of pinch myself about from time to time. I am not where I want to be yet, money-wise, but I am getting there.
Now, I have expertise that is worth top dollar. As a tech writer I am paid a dollar per word or more, while as a journalist I am paid that rate only some of the time.
Why am I proud of it? Because I have become a quasi-expert on construction, engineering, and on various types of software for businesses, including construction project management software, software for drones, 3D imaging, LiDAR, and more, by writing about it all for magazines and businesses. People contact me sometimes to ask me about my opinion on this stuff and it blows me away a bit—hey, after all I started off just wanting to learn to write!
What was one of the most challenging aspects, if any, as a journalist you had to overcome?
I think you mean challenging aspects of being a writer or journalist?... That greatest challenge would be using computers, believe it or not! And it still is, sometimes (I have used many software tools, including pagination software and blog software and more, but I am not a lover of Google Docs and other file-editing software).
I am not a huge fan of computers, though I have learned to kind of love them. I was a late adopter to the internet. I was not a hyper-focused professional-to-be in college—I wasn’t very interested in working in an office; it really had little appeal, though I tried to kid myself into believing it did.
How has your work varied/evolved over your career in journalism? How have the issues changed?
Over the past 17 plus years I’ve morphed into a business journalist/tech writer. In business journalism, you are always looking to serve the reader with actionable info, best practices and the like. You want to have info for them that will help their business and help them make money.
Within the world of writing, there is an abundance of competition. What have you done, if anything, that is advantageous to you and separates you from all of the other writers that could be applying for the same position? What advice would you give to prospective writers that could separate them from everyone else?
Write, write, write. But also keep reading and read A LOT—so you can continue to learn from other writers, through noticing how they write and what they do that works (you pick up little tricks from others as you become a more critical reader, which hopefully Kiski and college will teach you to be)—but also to learn more about subjects you are writing about.
Learning more about your areas of “coverage” so to speak, will make you a better reporter, or marketing writer, or whatever kind of writer you may be. It will make you more valuable to your employer, too.
Read loads of plays if you are a playwright, or poetry if a poet, or essays if you’re an essayist. No advice will separate you from the rest, but hard work, talent, making the right connections and doing good work might help any writer to be stand out.
How do you enter your specific work field?
I earned a BA in Professional Writing and Creative Writing (a double major) from CMU, started writing for newspapers as a freelance writer, and just worked from there. If you want to be a journo, study writing in college and get experience on the college newspaper and elsewhere while there. I didn’t go that route—I got my experience after graduating.
You also could start to get experience right now—newspapers and magazines (and sometimes radio stations and TV stations) are constantly looking for interns and newbies with some writing skills who will work for nothing or next to nothing. Seek out internships at publications. Try to get summer jobs at these places. Cover high school sports for them, do whatever you can to get “clips”—i.e., published articles with publications, that you can then show and use as proof of your ability to write. You need clips to get jobs.
Where is the most interesting place your work has taken you? Has your job ever led you to a place where you feared for your life?
I covered the Sago mine disaster/rescue in West Virginia, for Reuters news service. Worked nearly 24 hours nonstop. I got some published personal writing (literary journalism that has been published) out of it, too.
But I have never really feared for my life while reporting but have been in situations where people wanted to beat me up for being a reporter or asking questions, such as while covering a funeral for a victim of the Ronald Taylor black-on-white racial mass murders.
I played linebacker—successfully and savagely—while at Kiski. I have been in the worst ghettos in Pittsburgh and other bad places for my work. I grew up in the city, so I am not afraid anywhere here, but I am aware. You have to have street sense if you live here, much less work here or cover crime here.
BTW, you needn’t go to Somalia, or to a war front, or to somewhere distant to be a journalist; we have Africans to write about, right here in the US, and violence akin to a civil war in many cities. Journalism is needed everywhere, and for a variety of purposes.
What was it like working and writing for so many companies, covering so many topics?
Awesome. Very fulfilling, though the money hasn’t always been what I’d like it to be. Having many different experiences, bosses and editors over the years gives you a chance to learn more from more people who know stuff you do not. But you have to be open to it, as I was and am. Editors with less experience than a writer still often can teach that writer many, many things. Always be willing to learn and be humble enough to listen to your bosses.
What made you get interested in the career you have today?
I wanted to keep writing, so I started writing more and more about business, and a bit later, more and more about software for businesses. It has helped me stay employable, because software as a service, and business journalism, are both areas where good writing is still in demand. Ya gotta fish where the fish are.
