“The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity.” — Amelia Earhart
* * *
Posts Tagged ‘#365Ways2026’
Be Tenacious
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, creativity, doing stuff, inspiration, persistence, Thoughts, Writers, writing on April 14, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Why Stop?
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, creativity, persistence, Thoughts, Writers, writing on April 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »
A little advice from Guardian columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, to an artist feeling the pressures of AI and social media.
With the advance of AI, I feel my work as an artist is no longer respected. Should I just give up?
“Should I keep making art?” Even though it might not make money? Even though the algorithm might not value it? Even though all around me the slop marches on, I feel a growing carelessness in the culture, an indifference to craft – should I keep making art? To that, you might well answer: why would I stop?”
What she said.
* * *
Today Is…
Posted in Food and..., tagged persistence, baking, #365Ways, #365Ways2026, more than I can chew on April 12, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Today is lemon madeleines, almond apricot madeleines, and giant brown butter chocolate chip cookies.
Ambitious? Yes. Have I accumulated one oven burn and an unexpected trip to the store so far? Yep! But I’m making progress, and that’s my goal.
Hope your day is also sweet!
* * *
Welcome Home, Explorers!
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, Artemis, inspiration, NASA, space exploration on April 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »
It’s That Time!
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, Artemis, Earth, moon, NASA, science, space, space exploration on April 10, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Today is the day, folks, when our friendly neighborhood astronauts make their (hopefully trouble-free) return to our home planet.
As we wait for splashdown, anticipated to be just after 8pm EDT tonight, here is an interactive look at What’s Inside NASA’s Mission Control.
And to save you from tracking down one of the many (many) space-themed Artemis links I’ve put up over the past couple of days, you can watch tonight’s homecoming here starting at 6:30pm EDT!
NASA’s Artemis II Crew Comes Home (Official Broadcast) | NASA+
* * *
Follow the Music Home
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, humanity, music, Thoughts on April 9, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Am I still on the Artemis II space train? I am, because the story is optimistic and nerdy and cool.
You may have heard that the astronauts are getting wake-up songs from Mission Control. If you’ve wondered what those songs are, here you go!
All the Wake-up Songs Astronauts on Artemis II Have Heard So Far
Each morning, the flight crew is awoken by a song, hand-picked by Mission Control specialists back home on Earth. The long-standing practice keeps astronauts on schedule and connects them to the rest of humanity.
Here are the songs in YouTube playlist form: All Artemis II songs
The crew is scheduled to splash down tomorrow evening (April 10th), off the coast of San Diego. Stay tuned for that, and for the final entry in their wake-up playlist!
* * *
Grounding the Reader
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, learning stuff, podcast, practice, where who what, Writers, writing, writing advice, Writing Excuses on April 8, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Every writer has strengths and… not strengths. One of the areas I personally like to work on is grounding, which is where you invite readers into a scene and help them feel at home in your story.
In this episode of the long-running podcast Writing Excuses, Erin Roberts, DongWon Song, and Mary Robinette Kowal focus on ways to do just that.
Writing Excuses 21.09: Grounding The Reader
Grounding a reader starts in the very first lines of a story. Where are we? Who are we with? What kind of story are we in? Our hosts explore how emotion, context, and sensory detail work together to create immersion, and why action alone isn’t enough without an emotional lens.
It’s only 20 minutes long and includes a helpful writing exercise to get you going.
If you’ve realized that (for example) just being dropped into the middle of a gunfight wasn’t enough to engage your audience, or your reader said “I wasn’t quite sure where I was at first,” this advice could help!
* * *
Experts Have Thoughts
Posted in Entertainment, Science!, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, accuracy in fiction, Andy Weir, books, movies, ryan-gosling, science, science fiction, space, Thoughts, Writers, writing on April 7, 2026| 1 Comment »
Since my recent posts have spent a lot of time in space, let’s take a slight break from the nonfiction drama of NASA’s Artemis II mission and shift over to the fictional world of space adventure.
In his books, Andy Weir (The Martian) works hard to bring scientific accuracy to his fiction. The challenge is balancing the demands of a thrilling story with the science that grounds it in reality.
How did he do? Experts weigh in.
How plausible is ‘Project Hail Mary’? Experts have thoughts
While “Project Hail Mary” has its share of explosions and catastrophes, it’s the thinking that’s thrilling. Grace and Rocky must come together, with tools and whiteboards, craft and ingenuity, to solve a seemingly insoluble problem. They make mistakes, but they learn from those mistakes and from each other.
And an astrophysicist also has thoughts:
Project Hail Mary is packed with hard science. An astrophysicist breaks it down
… when I walked out of a recent preview screening of the film adaptation of Andy Weir’s 2021 science fiction novel Project Hail Mary, I had tears of joy in my eyes. The filmmakers had done justice not just to the original story, but also to the science at the heart of it.
From NASA, with lots of interesting subsidiary links:
The Science Behind ‘Project Hail Mary’ – NASA Science
Let NASA shed some light: Explore the resources below to learn the science facts fueling the science fiction.
(Wait, Tau Ceti was also featured in fiction by Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Kim Stanley Robinson? And was the setting for Barbarella? This planet gets around!)
The final assessment of the science? Not perfect, but good. And precisely accurate or not, this promises to be another very entertaining movie. (I’ve read the book but haven’t seen the film yet. Yes, I am a little behind the curve!)
Since we’re here, how about an article on the movie as a climate parable? (warning, spoilers!)
AMAZE AMAZE AMAZE! Yes, this is an article about Project Hail Mary as climate parable
And what the heck, here’s the movie trailer just for fun.
* * *
Road Trip!
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, inspiration, moon stuff, NASA, science, space on April 6, 2026| Leave a Comment »
A quick update from the solar system’s coolest road trip: the Artemis II mission just set a new distance record, going farther into space than the Apollo 13 astronauts did in 1970.
Artemis II astronauts share their first images from the historic mission | CNN
“There was a moment about an hour ago where Mission Control Houston reoriented our spacecraft as the sun was setting behind the Earth. And I don’t know what we all expected to see at that moment, but you could see the entire globe, from pole to pole. You could see Africa, Europe, and if you looked really close, you could see the northern lights. It was the most spectacular moment, and it paused all four of us in our tracks.” — mission commander Reid Wiseman
Check out NASA’s Artemis II image repository on Flickr for more shots from space.
What else are our friendly neighborhood explorers up to? Oh, you know, today they’re just doing a quick flyby of the Moon!
How cool is that?
* * *
Here’s to Good Eggs
Posted in Holidays, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, Easter, Thoughts on April 5, 2026| Leave a Comment »
What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other? — George Eliot
Happy Easter!
* * *
-
Recent Posts
She Said, He Said
-
-
Favorite Posts
Archives
Categories
It’s All So Random
What I’m Reading
You must be logged in to post a comment.