
My Year in Review: 2019 - riledhel
https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2019/12/10/my-year-in-review-2019
======
seren
Not really related to tech, but I find it interesting that she went from
software engineering to being an editor for the New York Times and writing
books.

That being said once you've been a whistleblower, even for good reasons,
sadly, it is probably harder to find another job in your previous area of
expertise...

~~~
cafard
Her whistleblowing doesn't seem to me the kind that should create distrust.
It's not as if she taped conversations relating to financial practices. She
stood up to a company culture that a lot of qualified observers thought toxic.

Anyway, it's well that she sounds cheerful. She seems to have been quite good
at what she did in tech, and I hope that she will consider going back to it.

[edit: corrected spelling of "observers"]

~~~
behnamoh
I find it weird that on her main page [0], she has put a large photo of hers
with the title "Whistleblower". I mean, since when did whistleblowing become a
profession/job?! And for someone who's supposedly working in the tech
industry, does it really reflect good on the person to identify herself mainly
as a whistleblower?

[0] [https://www.susanjfowler.com/](https://www.susanjfowler.com/)

~~~
adamch
Whistleblower is the title of her book.

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diehunde
Writing was one of my goals for 2019. Couldn't write a single piece. A mix of
impostor syndrome and lack of discipline I guess. Sometimes I get nice ideas
about something to write and then when I start typing I think, 'this is just
bad' or 'no one is going to like this'.

To the people who write: how do you decide what to write about? Do you play
and research with tools and thoughts, and write about that? Or mostly about
things you actually do at work?

~~~
BlackCherry
In order to be able to write, you need to have something you _actually_ want
to say on something you are actually interested in. Writing, is about
expressing ideas, so you need some sort of idea, and then you need strong
convictions and opinions surrounding that idea. What you DON'T need, is to be
unique, smart or good at the technical aspects of writing. If you believe this
to sound wrong, just read an Op-Ed in NYT.

You also have to face the idea, that maybe you actually don't want to write.
HN is obsessed with writing for the sole reason that it ostensibly builds
clout and ultimately makes you more money and validates you as "an important
person".

If after all of this, you still want to write, but you really don't have a
strong opinion or idea, choose a topic, research it, and share it.

Also, again maybe you need to expand your interests and try and pick an
ideology so that you have opinions on things. Listen to a lot of
people/podcasts/books with strong opinions, form friend groups with people
with strong opinions, fight them on their ideas by researching counters to
their opinions. Take stances and argue from a position that you don't believe,
etc. This could be anything from gender in tech, to free markets vs regulated
markets, to TDD is good vs TDD is bad, to Remote is good vs Remote is bad,
etc, etc.

~~~
Whirl
Agree with this. I felt the same about writing, but eventually found that
having strong feelings about my chosen topic helps a lot.

I’ve never been able to write for the sake of writing, so I only author posts
when I feel strongly about the topic. There are days or weeks when I don’t
care to write anything and that’s ok. Eventually you run across something
interesting and BAM, you can barely type fast enough to keep up with your
thoughts.

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yla92
There was a blog post by her that I happen to read, called "Life Without a
Destiny"

[https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/5/21/life-without-
a-d...](https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/5/21/life-without-a-destiny)

What she wrote there totally resonated with me and stayed with me from the day
that I read. It was as if she managed to put what I have been wondering into
words.

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minouye
As an aside, what a great 2019 reading list!

[https://www.susanjfowler.com/reading-
list](https://www.susanjfowler.com/reading-list)

~~~
dominotw
Wow. Thats more than book/week. Is it really possible to absorb that amount of
information. Won't you simply forget what you read in a very short time after,
like almost immediately.

~~~
LameRubberDucky
A lot of it is fiction, so I would assume it is for enjoyment. No need to
remember all of it.

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dominotw
> she was denied a formal education–yet went on to obtain an Ivy League degree

Now an editor at NYTimes. Amazing resolve.

