Catherine Balavage Yardley

Here is my 2025 writing rundown. What a year! A huge thanks to all of the editors and writers I worked with. I’m doing this in chronological order. First up was this piece in @writers_artists Thanks to Clare Povey writersandartists.co.uk/advice/finally… On finally writing fiction.

How the hell is Easter Break next week? I just survived half term.

gardening is NOT relaxing bugs are eating all my shit I've never felt this violent in my life

The one thing AI can’t do is report. It’s really good at collecting and synthesizing information already on the internet, but it can’t get a fresh quote, pick up the phone or go witness something.

Having the same problem. So stressful. A

I’m not sure what it is.. but I genuinely cannot type on my iPhone keyboard anymore without constant mistakes.. something’s just off..

Authors trying to have a career in 2026...

Imagine walking into the Sistine Chapel alone. Just silence. And above you, the ceiling that Michelangelo painted on his back for four brutal years. Now imagine this isn’t a rare privilege. You hold the keys.

@thebigjohnnyd Sorry

You're laughing? A cop testified under oath that he does not know if Afroman fucked his wife, and you're laughing?

Did you know!?

I need to know what Daddy Yankee thinks of these Gasolina prices.

@CNviolations What show is this?

That was funny 😂

@gemmaEdenham Get well soon ❤️

My writing companions today 🤧🫩

9-year-old lad walking home from football sees something not right. Three blokes trying to drag a girl into a van. Most people would freeze… he didn’t. Started shouting, ran straight at them, caused a scene. They panicked and ran off. She got away. Nine years old. Fair play to the kid that’s proper courage.

Just walked through London for only 15 minutes and saw all this - Recently voted best city in the world for the 11th year in a row - Serious crime rates the lowest its been since 2014 Don't listen to media outlets who make money by being miserable fuckers and dividing us x

Let me explain exactly why your phone seems to read your thoughts, because the real answer is more invasive than telepathy. Every time you open a website or app, a real-time bidding auction fires in under 100 milliseconds. Your GPS coordinates, browsing history, device fingerprint, age, gender, income bracket, and hundreds of inferred interest categories get packaged into a “bid request” and broadcast to hundreds of companies simultaneously. One company wins the ad slot. All of them keep the data. This happens thousands of times per day per person. A 2018 New York Times investigation found 75 companies pulling precise location data from apps, with some users tracked up to 14,000 times in 24 hours. In 2012, a Target statistician identified 25 products that, purchased in combination, could predict a customer was pregnant and estimate her due date. A teenager’s father discovered she was pregnant because Target sent baby coupons to the house before she told anyone. That was one retailer. Store receipts only. Fourteen years ago. Now scale that. Your phone pings GPS while you sleep. Data brokers link your phone, laptop, and tablet through probabilistic matching of IP addresses, WiFi networks, and behavioral patterns without you ever logging in. The FTC caught two brokers in 2024 categorizing people by visits to reproductive health clinics, political protests, and religious services, then selling those profiles to law enforcement. The algorithm doesn’t hear your thoughts. It compares your behavioral fingerprint against millions of similar profiles and predicts your next interest before you’re consciously aware of it. It makes hundreds of predictions per day. You ignore the misses. The five hits feel like telepathy. You paid for the phone. You pay for the data plan. You generate the signal. And every time a page loads, your identity gets auctioned to the highest bidder before the content even renders. They called it “personalized advertising” because “real-time mass surveillance funded by the people being surveilled” doesn’t fit on a consent banner.

This is bad news.

Every writer does it their own way. 😂😂😂 #writingcommunity #writerslife #writerscommunity #authorlife #freelancewriter

passing through the strait of hormuz if anyone needs anything

Jimmy Kimmel: “The only war Trump had an exit plan for was Vietnam.”