La Précieuse Ridicule

A while ago I bought a copy of Steering the Craft by Ursula K Le Guin, "A revised and updated guide to the essentials of a writer’s craft" since people keep reccing it. I read through to the first exercise and then Got Stuck. But I am going to have another go now I've thought some more about what kinds of writing I actually like doing (eg fanfic), and try and keep notes as I go.
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Like, they're not too bad to use but my god the vibe is atrocious. I picked them for my newsletter cos they're free and (unlike Substack) not, to my knowledge, actively in bed with nazis. But goddamn.

Their latest "guide to growing and monetizing creator-first businesses" email started with "I recently listened to a podcast where MrBeast discussed how switching from voice actors to AI-powered software to translate one of his videos for a non-English-speaking audience created an admittedly worse product but improved the audience retention rate", a sentence near-perfectly designed to make me cringe away from my screen.

I guess the naked amoral capitalism is in some ways less gross than the "app for independent voices" thinly veiled amoral capitalism of Substack etc but urrrgh.

(now to decide if I want to crosspost this to the newsletter lol)