Writer, software engineer, author of Human Software. Thinking about the humans behind the systems.
Human Software 272 - Impatient, Needy Writers
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Writers are terribly impatient. We are so fragile, we crave attention all the time. So, for us, writing into a vacuum and not getting anything back is the worst. We will happily take anything including "wow, it really sucked" or "how could you be so old and so feeble at writing?" At this point in the journey of Human Software, I'm so desperate for feedback, I'm even willing to pay for it! So that's what I did. In January, I hired an editor, and he's been great. He helped me with the structural edits and encouraged me to crack on with the revisions. Now, as I review the generous beta reader feedback, I've decided to hire him again and get on with the final round of copy editing. And so, all of a sudden, this is the final push, my friends! To celebrate, I just launched the Leanpub landing page here: https://leanpub.com/humansoftware/ Please do me a favour and go there and tell me what you think of it. Is the synopsis clear and interesting? How's the snippet? Useful? Do you want to read more? Any feedback gratefully received! You can simply reply to this email! So a month or so of copy editing to go and by mid to late July I am aiming to have the e-book complete and ready to go. I've hired a cover designer to help me out too. While I quite like my AI generated thing, it's probably just a temporary placeholder. I am committed to using real art and real people to create the cover. Watch this space for more updates and closer to publication date I'll be sharing more about the artwork and the layout and where you can buy it. And if my life wasn't busy enough with the final edits, I'm also turning Human Software into a screenplay. Read more about it below! Until next time, have a great Sunday. Human Software: The ScreenplayPublished on May 15, 2025 I like writing. I’ve enjoyed writing Human Software. However waiting for feedback can be nerve-wracking, so over the last few weeks I decided to channel some of that nervous energy into another endeavour. As I wrapped up my last edits, I discovered a screenwriting course that was just starting the next week, and I enrolled.… Read More »Human Software: The Screenplay
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The Human Engineer
Writer, software engineer, author of Human Software. Thinking about the humans behind the systems.
The After (at the back) I finally headed back to work this week. Over the last few months, I've often felt like I was going around in the circles and that, in fact, was quite close to the truth. I first posted on LinkedIn that I was "Open to Work" at the start of November it's taken about six months to land a new gig. Why so long? A few things. I'm older, there's AI, and it is a tough market but at the beginning I certainly had plenty of interest both from the network and from recruiters....
It's amazing how dependent we are on paperwork even in 2026. I spent a few hours this week printing forms, signing them, scanning them, uploading them. Automation has brought us so far ... and yet. I tried to use Claude to help me design some shelves above the washing machine and honestly it was easier just to use my own head. AI is sometimes an exhausting tool to use. One of those forms was for a new job — starting in a couple of weeks. More on that soon. The bigger news: Human Software has...
Conference season hit Amsterdam last month with the global juggernaut that is Kubecon but I eschewed the noise of that particular enormous techie event and went instead to the writer-friendly event "Stories Unfold" at Amsterdam's OBA theatre. This was a very pleasant evening giving a selection of self-published and traditionally published authors a stage to share the stories behind their books and also highlighted a new compilation of short stories. The audience was very much made up of...