A friend of mine, also a writer, posted about seeking work as a freelancer and having to wade through the naysayers, complainers, and grammar nerds to glean information about where to find work.

Admittedly, AI is robbing this group of writers of much viable income. Businesses will take AI cheaply over original work for more cost. There’s a lot of copywriting work that needs no more than what AI can produce. It’s good enough, so to speak. Sometimes you don’t need someone who’s won a Pulitzer to write your copy.

But whining was dominating the lists he was on. Being more old school, he saw this as writers slitting their own throats in finding work. Who wants to hire someone like that?

Everything you write online gets read by people you don’t expect. Some of them impact careers.

Whatever you post online, read the draft as if it can impact your career. Yes, we all have opinions, but does expressing that opinion outrank the effort to find work? Which is more important? If a potential editor or publisher or business executive saw what you posted, would it factor in whether they chose to work with you?

And I’m not talking just politics or religion. It’s talking about the industry, about mistakes people have made, about the stupidity of the way other things have been written…how you could do it much better. Commas in the wrong place. You get it.

We fool ourselves into thinking that what we say in groups stays there. Every group has infiltrators. And every group contains people looking for which writers to hire and which writers NOT to hire. And don’t forget, sharing posts is a real deal as are screenshots of comments that are unshareable. And finally, you never know if the other writers in the room are vying for the same work you are.

Nothing you post online is ever safe. Protect your words like you would your credit card and social security number. The lurkers are there.