On Technical Writing
Jean-Luc David, a published author of books and articles, shares some of his advice on technical writing:
Apart from the work I do as a freelance developer, I enjoy writing books and articles for a variety of publications including ASPToday.com, XML.com and Builder.com. During the past three weeks, I've been successfully negotiating a few book proposals and writing the first chapters.
All of this activity has made me think about the process of writing. I thought of sharing a few personal random observations with you...
I can definitely identify with this tidbit:
Here's the most effective way to avoid writer's block: If you are stuck for words for any significant period of time, stop writing. Take a walk to your local coffee house (I favor Tim Horton 's), throw a couple of hoops, take a 45 min nap or spend time with your wife (or significant other). Coming back to the topic with a fresh perspective is the best cure.
When I get stuck, it's like my brain's task manager is telling me that "thread" is not responding. I could kill the process and keep trying to restart it. That is, I could trash what I have so far and start over. Sometimes I just let that thread continue to run in the background while I work on something else, like Jean-Luc does.