Jared Goring 🇨🇦 🇺🇦

1 Apr

One year ago - my first day on Bluesky - I posted this. Over the year, I've: ~gained 1.5k followers ~posted hundreds of WIPSnips ~beta-read a half-dozen books ~got into an anthology ~published a novelette (submitted to SFINCS!) ~launched a novel ~posted hundreds of writing tips ⅓

Jared Goring 🇨🇦 🇺🇦@jaredgoring.com

April fools' day prank idea: I pretend to myself and everyone else that I'll actually use a social medium

No GenAI or LLMs? Fuck yeah, fuck yeah, fuck yeah! This whole thread sounds awesome. Emulating a Commodore 64, by someone who's way better at tech and code than I XD

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This makes me want to dig up the paper printouts of a video game my dad coded for his C64, and punch it all in, so that I can try playing it. This is really cool, this is really really cool.

I haven't read all of this but I've gotta go back to work now - but I love everything I've read so far!

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No clue how long it's been like this but I just saw @danaenight.northsky.social 's new screen name on here and that is such a perfectly well-done reference, top notch!

Reasons to not get fired:

"We shouldn't refuse to deal with other countries just because they have bad views or record on human rights." …as if no other countries exist? Fuck off.

"But if we don't sell wheat to the Nazis, we can't change their minds about the Bad Things!" Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Don't worry, our government is definitely liberal. Says it on all their letterhead and everything.

"We shouldn't refuse to deal with other countries just because they have bad views or record on human rights." …as if no other countries exist? Fuck off.

"No but you don't understand, if we keep selling wheat to the Nazis, they pay us money." I don't give a fuck. No.

Me: "Hey, make a post maybe?" My brain: "Mm okay. What about?" Me: "idk something fun I guess?" My recent experiences: "Hey so uh, what about if, instead-"

Got my annual review today and I swear my boss nearly cried during it. Started with: *heavy sigh* "Okay let me just start by saying that- that I really appreciate how much you do for the department, and thank you? Thank you. I-" …and like thanks bud but I didn't do it for you. [Work Thoughts Time]

Your workplace doesn't care about you and that's okay. Don't care about them either. Don't let yourself get happy when they thank you. Don't get angry at them when they admonish you. Don't give them your emotions, they don't deserve it. Don't let them into your heart.

Tips for surviving a capitalist hellscape #1202 XD

It ends with them using the thing they admired you for as an admonition instead; "you used to be such a hard worker!" It's setting you up for abuse of neglect. Provide appreciation, so that its lack is punitive. My workplace does not care about me. That's okay. That's not a surprise.

Your workplace doesn't care about you either. Maybe the people in it do - maybe - but if you're an employee of a corporation? They certainly don't. They can't. "They" don't functionally exist. There is no mind of the corporation, only a loosely-held amalgam of boardroom meeting minutes and SOP.

Workplace thanks is corporate messaging - it's just there to change how you intake something, or to change how they can treat it. I hand you a book? That's just my giving you a book. I wrap it? *Now* it's a gift. My boss was, essentially, taking credit for my hard work.

Now don't get me wrong! He's not smart enough to do this deliberately. He's just mimicking the behaviour of others, who came up with the idea, which starts with thanks like this and ends with "…you won't do that? But you're such a hard worker!" It starts with thanks and ends with leverage.

I'm not working harder for him. I'm not working for the shareholders, fuck the shareholders. I'm not working for corporate advancement - take me off of the fast-track, do not mark me ready for promotion. No. I work hard because I am a hard worker.

Descended from and raised by hard workers: Ukrainians, Dutch, Farmers, Healthcare Professionals; I could list more - you get the idea. Workplace thanks is like gift-wrap: it isn't the gift. It doesn't change the gift. It just changes the feel of it.

I work really hard. I work really quite hard while I'm at work - mentally, physically, emotionally. …and I'm not mad that he thanked me, but neither am I grateful, because I just don't give half a shit about that. I didn't do it for him. I didn't do it for the job.

I work hard at work because I have a personal work ethic. Because I am going to work hard, if I am going to work. I signed an employment contract saying that I would work in exchange for pay; they pay the agreed amount, I work, and because I'm me, I work hard.

Firstly: I don't hate my boss as a person. Terrible, awful, no-good boss though. Can't schedule shit, can't keep track of anything, can't communicate, bad at day-to-day stuff *and* in a crisis. Irredeemable as a boss. Coming on three years, literally not a single day's been better for his presence.

As a person he's okay-ish, by which I mean: for a 40-something year old white man, he's mostly unobjectionable. Ish. Getting sidetracked though. So he teared up because of everything I do for the department, and I do. I really do. I don't singlehandedly keep it afloat - impossible - but I do lots.

#WritingCommunity #WritingTips All "rules" of writing were made by reverse-engineering writing that worked. That's the only actual rule: make it work. Don't get so distracted by following rules that you forget to make your writing effective, whatever effect is your goal! <3

"Hey cool recipe, could I make it with beef instead of chicken?" My bro, you could make it with roadkill possum if you so wish but don't make it anyone else's problem.

"Can I substitute [ingredient]?" Sure. It's a different recipe now, though, like…it's fine and everything, do what you wanna do, I'm not the recipe cops? There are no recipe cops. Sub to your delight!

Also though, if it goes wrong, don't blame it on the recipe writer? "I made this lamb stew but I used eggplant instead and dropped the cream and didn't use cheese and used potatoes instead of beets and IT WAS TERRIBLE" Yeah because you fucked it up XD

DD Ward ..."Probably not a Vampire."

Nnn…nope…not quite…but you're getting really close. You'll figure out how to spell it pretty soon, I think.

Jared Goring 🇨🇦 🇺🇦 reposted

@ddwardiswriting.bsky.social

A reader reads all books in conversation with all the other books they have read before. My novel is never a stand alone novel. It is book five hundred twenty six on some reader's life series. And I cannot know how a reader's previous reads impact my novel in their mind as they read.

Jared Goring 🇨🇦 🇺🇦 reposted

Daniel Kibblesmith

@kibblesmith.bsky.social

Every movie, song, and book that you love was made without the technology that people who don’t make art are now insisting is necessary for making art.

Just a reminder that you don't actually own anything. Neither do I, by the way; ownership is just a shared lie we tell each other.

I dunno, anyway, today's being weird so far, enjoy my 6am nihilism or don't I guess? <3

Break's over so I've gotta go back to work now, to pay the mortgage on the house they tell me I own XD

Just a reminder that you don't actually own anything. Neither do I, by the way; ownership is just a shared lie we tell each other.

If a big guy with a big gun shows up and says I can't live there anymore and it's his house? Guess what? It's his house now! I can go to the government and the bank and ask them to do something about it. Maybe they will. Until then though, it's not my house.

This is true of everything. Everything. My money, my books, my motorcycle, my identity! My ideas! None of them are actually owned by me. All of them are able to be stolen or destroyed or usurped; ownership - as a permanent, as an innate, is a lie. It's temporary. Only temporary.

Just a reminder that you don't actually own anything. Neither do I, by the way; ownership is just a shared lie we tell each other.

If the bank shows up tomorrow and says I can't live there, and it's their house now? I can maybe call the government and get them to step in, and maybe they will. If the government says I can't live there and it's theirs? I can maybe call the bank and see if they'll do something about it.

If the government and the bank come to me together and say I (and the other three people) can't live there anymore, and it's their house? Then I can't fucking live there anymore and it's their house.

Just a reminder that you don't actually own anything. Neither do I, by the way; ownership is just a shared lie we tell each other.

For example: I "own" a house. (I have a mortgage on a house, shared with three other people in equal share; I'm not rich, I'm a gay communist) However! What this actually means, practically, is that the government and the bank say I can live there. That's all.

Freeze-drying things is very silly sometimes. Like "Yes, yes I have taken these apples and cooked them down into sauce… now it is time to put them into a box… and turn them into… un-sauce…"

Time to unsauce this applesauce. Make it powdery!

📚 Ellie Rhymer! Spaceships and Scoundrels 📚

Yes the apples started out medium wet, as apples do. I have made them much wetter, but now I will make them *entirely un-wet*. Wetness target level: zero.

Jared Goring 🇨🇦 🇺🇦 reposted

@ellieyellu.bsky.social

Combatting AI accusations is not going to be about showing your notes or drafts, or your lack of em-dashes It's going to boil down to being able to talk critically about your work and creative decisions An AI doesn't make creative decisions, so prove you're human by being conscious of your own

#WritingCommunity #WritingTips Accuracy vs. Precision These two are commonly conflated, but knowing which is which will help your writing! Accuracy is landing close to your target; precision is landing close to where you're aiming. (I know, you'd think these would be the same, but no!) ⅓

In writing it's a bit different, but easily demonstrable: "Mt. Everest is a mountain." <- highly accurate, very imprecise (or, vague) "Mt. Everest is the third-highest mountain in India, which feeds the River Kwai." <- highly precise. Inaccurate. (Or, wrong XD) ⅓