“[I]f seated at the computer, I check my email conservatively 30,000 times a day. When I am writing, I must have a snack, call a friend, or abuse myself every ten minutes. I used to think that this was nothing more than the difference between those things we do for love and those we do for money. But that can’t be the whole story. I didn’t always write for a living, and even back when it was my most fondly held dream to one day be able to do so, writing was always difficult. Writing is like pulling teeth. From my dick.”
David Rakoff, Don’t Get Too Comfortable
Links and Quotes
One or two readers will do
Solid evergreen advice in this piece on providing feedback on longform content like blog articles. I especially echo this sentiment:
[M]ultiple teammates giving feedback can confuse the writer and may also contradict each other’s feedback. Put some trust in the writer you’re working with and understand that you need one or two, at best, sets of eyes on their work.Source: How to provide feedback on content
I essentially wrote the reverse of this piece a few years back, also for Gather Content, but this one is much less sassy and probably easier to share with your boss 😉
A Civic Technologist’s Practice Guide
Excited for this new book coming up from Cyd Harrell (who’s also a good follow on Twitter, btw), especially the part about “how to show up in spaces dedicated to stewardship rather than profit.” Always happy for design conversations that aren’t about algorithmically testing the conversion rate of different shades of cornflower blue.
Links of late | 2019-03-13
Loved this take on why “be yourself” is terrible advice. One good reason: “a holistic self does not exist”. Yup. It’s not in stock yet (or quickly went out of stock?) but I desperately want this rainbow guitar. I don’t need another guitar. I probably won’t even play out with it because it’s a … Read more
Links of late | 2019-02-24
Dynamic type support on iOS is a thing developers need to pay attention to. I’m not a developer so I skimmed this, but I am someone with attention and sensory processing challenges that lend me to preferring larger type, custom fonts, and other accessibility tweaks. Seems like a lot of other people are adjusting their … Read more
Links of late | 2018-11-19
Minneapolis indie rocker Mark Mallman has a book coming out next year. Mark is as much an artist as a musician. I dig his whole thing and am looking forward to the book. I’m not precisely sure why, but I got a kick out of this article busting the myth that Medieval people didn’t drink … Read more
Links of late | 2018-06-01
New version of Ulysses is out. Lucky 13. Nothing I’ll make immediate use of but I see the appeal of the colored keywords, especially for a larger project like a book. A recent episode of 99% Invisible about Curb Cuts jumped right into their top ten for me. Design, usability, political activism, shitting on Jerry … Read more
Links of late | 2018-04-24
A mostly-anonymous donor left $10 million to Seattle’s KEXP. Great public radio institution. I stream it from time to time and love their in-studio performances on YouTube, like this one featuring Guantanamo Baywatch. Rewatched Marc Maron: Too Real (Netflix). He articulates a problem I understand all too well: “I kind of just want to do … Read more
Links of late | 2018-04-17
Listening to this Bodega track on repeat thanks to my friend Jess. I don’t know anything about them. Tranquilized bears, falling from trees to trampolines. That’s all. Art that overcomes barriers, literally. Humanity detected a star whose light is 3/4 as old as our entire universe. Kyle Kinane is episode 3 of season 2 of … Read more