Notices by jilleduffy (jilleduffy@mastodon.social), page 2

When doing the hard self-editing of your writing, you have to gut-check whether your edits are smoothing out shit

Sometimes you can't even see what's shit until you start to smooth it out, then you're like, "Oh, that is not a good IDEA under those words. It's just shit."

#writing #editing #writers #creativework

So by racking up some more followers, I can show how WORTHY my ideas are.

It's a silly system.

Even sillier is that authors have to promote and sell their own books. Did you know that? Publishers really only promote books if an author is already established or if a book gets picked for a big book club, a la Oprah or Reese W.

Everyone else is author AND marketer AND advertiser AND sometimes publicist

If you can give me a follow, it'll help me (an author and writer) play the game

Perhaps more importantly, I do have interesting stuff to share! Sometimes it's things I write, like for WIRED or PCMag, and sometimes it's stuff other people write, because I am all for promoting the best ideas no matter who has them!

On top of all that, we should all be big stars on The Social Media. It's so stupid.

Like, Mary Roach had just 1,600 followers on Instagram a week ago. Today she has 2,010. Her book tour just started, so that's why.

She is so funny and her books are so smart! Why does she need to be on Instagram at all? Someone is clearly making her play the game.

Here's the deal: Followers gives credibility to writers and authors.

Once upon a time, before Musk took over Twitter, I had around 7,000 followers there, which was sufficient for showing my cred! But I left lickety-split and never turned back.

Now I'm pitching some new projects and the game I have to play is "do u have a pLAtfORm?" because apparently that's the way to convince agents, editors, publishers of your worth

Friends! A goal: Can you help me double my followers on this fediverse over the course of a weekend?

RT this, recommend me to your peeps, follow me if you see this!

Let's see if we can do something nice! More context to come.

The number of people on LinkedIn telling me that people must suffer because corporation need to thrive is bonkers

I really wish more people would acknowledge and talk about the lack of workers' rights in the U.S.

Two and a half weeks ago, a mantid laid some eggs on the side of wall of the house where I live. Two days ago, I saw a bunch of ants around the egg casing. I couldn't tell if the ants ate the eggs—the ants eat EVERYTHING here in the jungle. Some of the ants lingered, and I got a closer look and it turns out they were the baby mantids!🐜

Every employee needs some kind of digital go bag. Getting fired by email or by being locked out of your work accounts is NOT NORMAL. It shouldn't be happening. And yet it is. You may not be able to protect yourself from a job loss, but you can make sure your most important documents don't get held hostage. To do that, you need a digital go bag.

This is my first piece in WIRED 🤩
https://www.wired.com/story/whats-in-your-digital-go-bag/

Typhoon is coming

Woke up at 2:15 a.m., no rain

Got out of bed at 6:15, no rain

Put leashes on dogs, absolute fucking downpour

Coaxed one dog to pee, brought them inside, toweled them off...no rain

A big THANK YOU to everyone who has purchased a copy of my book recently on REMOTE WORK! More e-books than usual sold in the last 3 weeks!

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Everything-Guide-to-Remote-Work/Jill-Duffy/Everything/9781507217863

AI uses too many em dashes because HUMANS use too many em dashes

It learns from what humans have already published on the internet (I'm talking about mass-market generative AI here)

As an editor, I have worked with exceptional writers who wrote clear and cogent arguments...using 30 em dashes, none of which were necessary and all of which were distracting

Foldable phones
AI-generated summary search results
...
Every time I think of technology nobody wants, this is what comes to mind:

Really struggling to see the point of Cory Booker's holding of the senate floor. It's not a filibuster because there's no vote pending, not for another, what?, 9 hours?

I think about these issue A LOT: In the workplace, "Being a woman and being older is a double whammy" (Christina Matz, director of the Center on Aging and Work)

That's almost word for word what anti-ageism activist Ashton Applewhite said 2 weeks ago when I interviewed her for a forthcoming article

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240320-gen-x-workplace-ageism

The gem:

"All these midlife transitions are on your way to giving fewer fucks about what the world thinks of you and the decisions you have made, and making them with greater clarity and strength."

The conversation was a lot about women in midlife crisis, and I asked about whether women now are feeling more empowered after 40.

She said:
"The assumption that decline should begin at 40 is misguided, misogynistic, and wrong. And I think women are discovering that maybe it's a backlash. ...obviously this is taking place in this period of horrendous rollback of fundamental women's rights. So perhaps it's also saying, fuck that shit. I'm not going to curl up and dry up."

I interviewed an expert on ageism for an article recently (still in progress) who reminded me that most of the "problems" of aging were invented by capitalism

Yes, the body & brain change with age. That's a reality. And yet, the _vast majority_ of people are sound of mind and able to live independently until they die. All the other the stuff we are convinced we should "fix" is a product of someone trying to sell us something

Ok, so I went to the first source of reporting for this one, and it sounds like it was a resource group for LGBTQ+ folks, and trans employees who were talking to one another

That's the "sexual themes"

I'm not linking to the original source because it's pretty shitty and they shouldn't get more clicks

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/us/politics/gabbard-nsa-firing-explicit-chat.html?unlocked_article_code=1.z04.B7_P.N83pjrPXKzJL&smid=url-share

“It’s insane,” Mr. Massie said. “We’re going to increase the deficit with this. Why would I vote for that? You can’t cut taxes without cutting spending, and they’re not really cutting spending.”

The only Republican who voted against the budget is the only one speaking up about its bullshit

[gift link]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/us/politics/mike-johnson-budget-resolution-vote.html?unlocked_article_code=1.z04.LUbh.c28Dmt5DS9GX&smid=url-share