Author | Lightnews

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · 10d

me: surely I won’t like every single song on the Ashe/FINNEAS/The Favors album.

also me: likes every single song

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · 10d

I can write a steamy scene without even opening my browser but then I have to dress someone for a wedding and I’m researching and calling in telephone jokers 😂

I knew writing was hard but this is not the way I expected it to be hard!

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · 10d

Replaced by AI slop lolsob

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · 17d

the thing I learned about walnuts is that they're not supposed to make your tongue feel funny. turns out that's an allergy 😂

Reposted by Coll McCutcheon

Juno Rylee (🎃birthday + HRT anniversary) @junoryleejournalism.com · 23d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

340 9.1K 29K

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · Sep 30

Thanks for the reframe. Now I’m going to be way more motivated to write my wholesome transmasc BDSM romance because it would piss those fascist motherfuckers off so much!

2

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · Sep 29

Oh, so a day of anxiety then? Nice!

Reposted by Coll McCutcheon

Mrs. Betty Bowers @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social · Sep 22

DISNEY: "OK, we are putting Jimmy Kimmel back on the air. You can resubscribe now."

ME: "I unsubscribed because you immorally bowed to fascism. I'm not going to resubscribe because you immorally bowed to finances."

1.6K 11K 42K

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · Sep 20

Baby oil? That's what I use to take my chest tape off so if it dissolves glue it can probably deal with makeup too. I resisted it for a long time because I hate using petroleum-based products but I hated the blisters on my skin more. Apply, let it sit for a bit, then wipe off should work.

1

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · Sep 18

The question is also the quality of the result. Faster isn’t always better, whether it’s translation, writing, visual arts, etc.

1

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · Sep 18

And that’s not even taking into account the time the experienced copywriters then have to spend copy editing the shitty AI sloppy work that has landed on our desk.

10

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · Sep 18

I’ve done a ton of tech content writing and I’m here to tell you that using AI for that is certainly not more efficient either. Nor is it faster. I’ve seen inexperienced copywriters use AI to produce shittier work way more slowly than experienced copywriters like me do without the AI.

2 23

Reposted by Coll McCutcheon

John Scalzi @scalzi.com · Sep 18

We have it as a contract point that translations of my work have to be performed by actual humans, I think actual human readers deserve to have actual humans translating and making the works as excellent as they can be regardless of language

Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · Sep 1

Reading so much here about skilled, deeply experienced translators being reduced to much-lower-paying machine translation post-editing (MTPE) — fixing a first-round AI translation.

Reminds me of the tremendous labor + frustration of *undoing* a bad copyedit (whether performed by human or machine)

AI Killed My Job: Translators

Few industries have been hit by AI as hard as translation. Rates are plummeting. Work is drying up. Translators are considering abandoning the field, or bankruptcy. These are their stories.

www.bloodinthemachine.com

28 110 790

Reposted by Coll McCutcheon

Victoria Goddard @victoriagoddard.bsky.social · Sep 15

New story time! Eventually there will be an actual new novel, but in the meantime: here's a side novella in the Greenwing & Dart series about the lady Olive ... and a dragon! Available at my website, Amazon, and coming to other online bookstores too

www.victoriagoddard.ca/products/oli...

Olive and the Dragon (EBOOK)

In the Woods Noirell, there are dragons. Olive is the daughter of the Woods. She knew what waited at the end of her path long before she set foot on it ...

www.victoriagoddard.ca

1 5 17

Reposted by Coll McCutcheon

Sheryl Weikal and the colorful Parrotlegals @leftistlawyer.com · Sep 11

Once again we're proving the Joker right, huh?

If Black, Brown, or Indigenous people are killed, if Palestinians are mass murdered or trans people are criminalized, if immigrants are sent to gulags, it's all part of the plan. But if one cishet white racist gets shot, everyone loses their minds.

12 140 560

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · Sep 10

sadly it’s like avocados, though. you miss the right moment and it becomes sadness

1

Reposted by Coll McCutcheon

John Scalzi @scalzi.com · Sep 8

I see some of you dragging a shit take from the fascist site over here to dunk on it, a) why are you still on the fascist site to find that shit, b) why are dropping shit onto this site, c) when you dunk on it you just give it a new audience. Leave shitty fascist takes on the shitty fascist site.

46 530 3.4K

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · Sep 5

I’ve been fleshing out my characters today, quite literally, trying to figure out their physique. Found a height comparison website and been playing around with it. And when I saw this image I got all giddy. I think this is the first time I’ve allowed myself to properly “see” Caleb and Mallory.

A height chart with two silhuettes, one in turquoise and one in purple. The turquoise one is a masculine figure, it looks like they’re wearing jeans, sturdy shoes and a hoodie, their hands are in their pocket, their short hair a little tousled. They’re labelled as “Caleb” 168cm / 5ft 6.14 inches. The purple silhuette is a feminine figure, probably best prescribed as voluptuous with thick thighs and curly longish hair. They’re seemingly wearing form-fitting clothing. Their body is facing away from Caleb but they’re looking back at them. They’re labelled as “Mallory” 163cm / 5ft 4.17 inches.

Reposted by Coll McCutcheon

you’ve been poisoned @spookyfox.bsky.social · Aug 29

Not a corporate shill, but it’s hard to put into words the impact of seeing a display of @aidenschmaiden.bsky.social’s Cemetery Boys - with its trans, gay, Latino protagonist - as the YA pick of the month at Barnes and Noble in my red state yesterday. 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈💗

Photograph of a small round table inside the American bookstore Barnes and Noble with a sign celebrating “Our Monthly Young Adult Pick: Cemetery Boys (by) Aiden Thomas.” Smaller white text below contains a blurb by K. Ancrum, author of The Wicker King: “A story much bigger than the paper that binds it, Cemetery Boys is the tender intricacy we have all been waiting for."
Stacks of the book surround the sign on both sides.

2 8 47

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · Sep 5

Okay so maybe writing a review of Babygirl (2024) wasn’t what I had planned for my writing day but, arguably, writing is writing. And I really could not resist. Especially after reading a bunch of IMDb reviews by vanilla people 😆 www.tumblr.com/collwritesbo...

@collwritesbooks · Coll McCutcheon

www.tumblr.com

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · Sep 5

Friday! Writing day! As always finding it super hard to get started, but I bet later on I’ll find it impossible to stop even to pee or eat. 🙄 ADHD brains be ADHDing, I guess.

Reposted by Coll McCutcheon

John Scalzi @scalzi.com · Sep 4

Reminder to all that if you post images in my comment threads without ALT text, particularly text-heavy memes/screenshots, you run the risk of me hiding them for everyone. If you're not willing to make the images accessible to everyone, I may not be willing to make them accessible to anyone.

18 79 900

Reposted by Coll McCutcheon

hux | aka Lizzie Huxley-Jones @littlehux.bsky.social · Sep 4

hey good news, I wrote to Wordkeeper (who I'm naming now they've responded) like guys this sucks and they said they've already decided to remove it as people have flagged it to them as not being acceptable, and it's going in their next big update. Good work other annoyed authors!!

1 1 9

Reposted by Coll McCutcheon

hux | aka Lizzie Huxley-Jones @littlehux.bsky.social · Sep 1

threatening me with a good time!!!! let’s sign up gang x

Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · Aug 27

AI advocates have warned that if every author in the class action filed a claim, it would "financially ruin" the entire industry.

Authors celebrate “historic” settlement coming soon in Anthropic class action

Advocates fear such settlements will “financially ruin” the AI industry.

arstechnica.com

2 8

Coll McCutcheon @collmccutcheon.bsky.social · Sep 1

he's just pissed off because he couldn't predict that

32