I’ve recently come back from Residential School – a week of uni that requires I attend lectures and partake in exams for the two subjects that I am currently undertaking part time as a Distance Education student.
As is the case any time I find myself in a new environment that is horse related, I met a lot of interesting people and had my eyes opened to many other things I wasn’t aware of with regards to horses. I was also made aware of people that are well known with regards to starting and bringing on horses and left with a list of names to look up online.
One of our lecturer’s mentioned the fact that they had carried out some technical writing with regards to a horse section on a show that aired weekly. Another writing job that relates to horses that I hadn’t considered!
Wikipedia has a rather broad definition of a technical writer or technical communicator, the key phrase standing out for me being “produces technical documentation for… consumer audiences.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_writer
So when I think of consumer audiences, and ones that specifically led to me teaching more people about horses and riding, I think of the Saddle Club.
There were a large number of preteens and early teens that decided to take up horse riding a couple of years back when I was instructing at a lower level. Why? Because they’d seen the Saddle Club and the interest in the show suddenly turned into an interest in learning to ride.
It may be a wrong assumption, but I would guess that there are people that know how to make a children’s show or one for any other demographic for that matter that want to focus it around horses. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they know enough about horses to be able to make the show realistic. This is where a Technical Writer may come in.
Think of the likes of Burke’s Backyard with an animal segment, the Saddle Club, Heartland, movies such as Flicka or the Black Stallion.
There are a number of books and movies out there that don’t seem completely believable with some of the aspects but that’s the joys of poetic license, I guess. This doesn’t take away from the fact that some texts, movies, or shows may employ a person or persons to either resource information from those in the know, or have someone in the know write the information in a technical manner that can be put to use.
Just because you know horses however, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re equipped to be a technical writer with regards to them.
MyFuture has a page focused on such a career – http://www.myfuture.edu.au/services/default.asp?FunctionID=5050&ASCO=253421A and also lists the sort of courses you would expect to have to complete to be qualified to take on such a position – http://www.myfuture.edu.au/services/default.asp?FunctionID=5360&ASCO=253421A&StateCode=VIC.
No surprises as to what they focus on – writing skill.
Perhaps if your skills do lie in the writing field and you have a love of horses and a sound knowledge base then this may be a path worth considering.
“Bread may feed my body, but my horse feeds my soul.”
tag: horse library, horse books, writing, equine shows, technical writer