Welcome to the Tuesday tastemaker

Tastemaker #44 AI copy vs. my copy: head to head Hi Reader. On Sunday I shared a behind-the-scenes peek into my writing process for an event commemorating the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene. You can peep that here if you missed it. I got a couple replies asking about my use of Claude in this process. Like: "Seems like Claude could have done this all by itself. What makes you an invaluable part of this process?” That’s a great question, JULIA. 🤨 😘 When you see what I had Claude write...

Tuesday Tastemaker #43Everyone needs to stop doing this The Craft is coming back! Peep the details & join the waitlist here Happy Tuesday motherfuckers! I’m on one today about the em dash (again). Just because some dummies who don’t read enough books noticed that GPT uses the em dash a lot (that’s the long dash with no spaces—like this), writers everywhere have started using the dinky little hyphen to indicate a mid-sentence break-like this. Or sometimes - like that. BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT IT’S...

Tuesday Tastemaker #42 The Post-Modern Prometheus Image Credit: The X-Files, "The Post-Modern Prometheus," Season 5 episode 5, originally aired Nov. 30, 1997, 20th Century Fox (Mulder 😆) Happy Tuesday, Reader. When I first started sending the Tuesday Tastemaker, my intention was for it to act as a showcase for all the random artsy-fartsy-ness I get into at any given moment—the music and television shows I'm obsessed with; the books I'm devouring; the hobbies I'm mastering and abandoning; etc....

Tuesday Tastemaker #41 Summer reading Happy Tuesday, Reader. This summer, I was invited to a reading challenge that only had one rule: NOBUSINESSBOOKS Because I work with fiction authors, every book I read is technically “for my business”—or at least, one could make that argument. Like when I used to write off all my Fabletics purchases because I was a personal trainer. But that’s pretty thin. I’d be reading fiction (and memoir, and nonfiction, and crime, and especially gothic haunted house...

Tuesday Tastemaker #39 The workshop I’m discussing in today’s email will be available during The Common Wealth Summit, August 18-22. It’s free, and if you’re a regular AI user, you absolutely need to catch this one. Register here. Hiya Reader. Are we tired of reading and talking and writing and experimenting and worrying and arguing and rebelling and explaining AI yet? Nope! There’s more! Last week I invested several hours into refining and customizing Claude, my AI co-worker of choice. … and...

Sunday Coffee Break #38 The Real World oh hi. This past week I’ve been feeling my age big time. For a few reasons, but mainly this: Too many dramatic and emotional discussions have been occurring lately in text-based spaces: Discord; Slack; texts; DMs. My current “get off my lawn! 😤💪🏽” gripe? I don’t think texting is the right venue for discussing feelings, especially the big, funky ones. (I know it’s all that’s available in some cases, that’s not what I’m talking about, don’t @ me.) What I’m...

Tuesday Tastemaker #38How to send Consistent Weekly Emails (hint: it's not time management) TL;DR: You should register for The Common Wealth Summit, if only to experience an egalitarian experiment in mutual aid, community care, and regenerative (not extractive) growth practices. Reader, Every few months, I like to turn the tables back on my readers (that’s you), and ask what YOU think I should be writing about. I do this for a couple reasons: to find out what you’re interested in and make...

Tuesday Tastemaker #37dumb copywriting advice Happy Tuesday, campers! I recently kicked off a summer miniseries called The Laugh Track, where every Sunday I break down a different funny thing so we can take all the fun out of it and see what’s behind the curtain. (Sorry.) It’s been making me think about some very common, very lazy, very stupid copywriting advice I hear ALL THE TIME: “Use humor!” “Using humour in copywriting blogs can be a great way to engage readers and make your content more...

Tuesday Tastemaker #36:baking fails Last week I tried and failed to make a key lime pie for the first time ever. It was not good, Reader. The gluten-free crust I’ve made 100 times crumbled apart and cracked across the bottom. The filling didn’t set, then it curdled in the oven. 😖 The meringue was… well, it was disgusting. I don’t know if this is because of something I did, or if meringue is actually just disgusting (I suspect the latter). The good news is, my partner ate it anyway. He’s a...