Just Me

Jane Friedman posted in her "Electric Speed" newsletter on 2/1/25 about how she will normally ignore a message that just says "hello" or "hello Jane." She linked to a post someone made about this very thing, and why it can be so frustrating to those of us who are very busy and must be selective with how we spend our time online. But she is not the only one who has expressed this concern. I have seen many posts on social media from other very busy writers or editors who feel the same way! It is quite validating, actually. And it reminded me of a blog post I wrote about this nearly three months ago. I never put it up on the blog, though, because I thought it was rude and off-putting. But, well, times being what they are, I think it should see the light of day. Here it is!   "When 'hello' means 'goodbye'"   Being on the Internet means that I get a lot of emails, DMs and messages from people I don’t know online. Most of the time, t...

When it comes to politics, I try to avoid discussing it with other people. I respect other people’s decisions and choices and I won’t cut ties with them based on who they vote for.   But it’s when they start to act on the negative and hateful ideas pushed forward by certain politicians where I draw the line.   Until now, I have not had to do this. I know other Trump-supporters online who have posted things, but they never actively started being racist, homophobic, misogynistic liars towards others in real life. However, with the spate of so much hateful and racist content being posted on social media, it can be a sign that this is someone to avoid.   This is especially true if we work in the same field.   I have zero interest in working with two-faced people. An example is someone who is being hateful, homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist and ableist to others both on and offline, but sweet and kind to me. Would I want anything to do with such a pe...

This morning, while I was reading the news online, I came across an article about a girl with a facial scar on TikTok who sparked a lot of attention from viewers because she has a facial scar. I clicked on the link to read the article, but because of the paywall, I was only able to read part of the article, and not the whole thing. But what I was able to read was bizarre.   Apparently, the video was of the young woman’s face, and she was facing the viewer as she talked. The article stated that she had a small, very slight scar on her face, which was the result of an accident she had been in. However, she was not talking about her scar or the accident. She was talking about something else entirely.   But that didn’t make any difference, because all a majority of the commenters talked about was the barely-there scar that was on her face. It might as well have been the ONLY thing on her face! Forget about her eyes (or what color they were), her hair or even the expression...