Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, art, creativity, fail better, failure, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »
“You need to drop glass on the floor, get the burns, all those things. The real practice is in all the pieces that didn’t make it, the cliched blood, sweat and tears. You can’t know the limits of something unless you’ve failed.”
— Will Shakspeare, artisan glassblower
And you can still make something beautiful along the way.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, curiosity, Fiction, inspiration, Writers, writing, WritingResearch on December 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »
If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to be someone else, either because you need background for a character or because some days, daydreaming about a different life is all that’s standing between you and a very impolitic email to your boss, this podcast may interest you!
Curious what it would be like to walk in someone else’s (work) shoes? Join New York Times bestselling author Dan Heath as he explores the world of work, one profession at a time, and interviews people who love what they do. What does a couples therapist think when a friend asks for relationship advice? What happens if a welder fails to wear safety glasses? What can get a stadium beer vendor fired? If you’ve ever met someone whose work you were curious about, and you had 100 nosy questions but were too polite to ask … well, this is the show for you.
Today’s episode? What it’s like to be A Professional Santa Claus.
You know you want to know!
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Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, AI, art, creativity, genre fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 17, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Ken Liu is one of our modern masters of speculative fiction. The first story of his that I read was “The Paper Menagerie,” “the first piece of fiction to win three genre literary awards: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the World Fantasy Award.”
So he’s pretty good.
He’s also been thinking about art, AI and the evolving relationship between them. Here’s his new story:
Future Science Fiction Digest – Good Stories
Clara’s favorite part of the workday is the very beginning.
She likes flipping the switches on the wall right inside the office entrance, all sixteen of them, different colors and laid out in two neat columns, like the console from an old NASA space capsule that she got to sit inside once on a school trip to DC. As she takes a sip of her latte, her right hand running up the wall, click-click-click, flipping one switch after another, she imagines herself turning on rocket engines, initiating a docking maneuver, venting some dangerous alien spores out the airlock.
The story is one of the many interesting pieces in The Digital Aesthete: Human Musings on the Intersection of Art and AI, edited by Alex Shvartsman with an impressive roster of authors.
Today’s software can only imitate art, but what about tomorrow?
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Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, inspiration, science, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.
— Carl Sagan
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, history, inquiring minds, Thoughts, time travel, Writers on December 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Mr Man and I had a lot to do today but (straight talk) didn’t get to most of it. That’s fine, because we were short on sleep and needed to recharge before we tackled anything big. It’s good to be prepared.
With that in mind, here’s a bit of helpful advice for writers and adventurers.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, art, creativity, inspiration, music, productivity, Writers, writing on December 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »
I was feeling pretty not terrible about closing in on three years of daily posts here, but this guy! Writing, recording and releasing an album every day? Seriously impressive.
‘Like brushing my teeth’: how Michiru Aoyama writes, records and releases an album every day
For two years, the Kyoto musician has risen at five, watched football, then made an eight-track album of super-deep ambient music – while fitting in a two-hour walk.
I’m still feeling not terrible about my streak, but this gives me an extra dose of inspiration. Win win!
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, genre fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 7, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, astronomy, inspiration, learn-astronomy, science, space, studying-space on December 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Why isn’t there any sound in space? An astronomer explains why in space no one can hear you scream
In space, no one can hear you scream.
You may have heard this saying. It’s the tagline from the famous 1979 science fiction movie “Alien.” It’s a scary thought, but is it true? The simple answer is yes, no one can hear you scream in space because there is no sound or echo in space.
I’m a professor of astronomy, which means I study space and how it works. Space is silent – for the most part.
University of Arizona Distinguished Professor of Astronomy Chris Impey explains the science behind the Alien tagline, showcases slinkies as sound waves, and discusses why humans can’t speak across space but phenomena like galaxies and black holes can.
Also, a fun fact I did not know: “The word vacuum comes from the Latin word for empty.”
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Posted in Entertainment, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, bergen, inspiration, Norway, scandinavia, six-word story, Thoughts, writing on December 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »
So there we were, about to turn off the television when Mr Man and I realized that the actor on screen was David Elsendoorn, who played rude Dutch player Jan Maas in Ted Lasso. Upon closer inspection, we realized that the movie was a moderately well disguised promo for the lovely Unesco World Heritage city of Bergen in Norway.
Having just discussed the clever and funny (and sadly not real) movie Dundee from Tourism Australia, we felt that this was an excellent use of a Hallmark-style movie.
A moment later, a shot of the Bergen sign at the city’s airport popped up on screen. By Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, the sign has letters that are 5.5 meters high and weigh 2.5 tons, and is meant to be “existentialist and poetic.” Competition judges apparently had a healthy dose of Scandinavian wit, because the sign reads “Bergen?”
Everyone can put what they want in the question mark, and there are no wrong answers
It certainly gave me ideas, the shortest of which is this six-word story:
Stupid unpredictable teleportation. Welcome to Bergen?
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, genre fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on November 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »
One thing about unfinished or trunked speculative fiction stories is that sometimes, they come true.
My work covers a lot of territory, including near-future science fiction. The problem with that is the ever-evolving definition of “near.”
With today’s innovation landscape, it often doesn’t take very long for a speculative future to become an everyday present. I ran across a story draft from six or seven years ago, and realized that the subject was no longer fiction.
Now it’s just life.
What’s the lesson? In this case, I trunked the story because it wasn’t quite working, but in general? Focus on finishing, and submit to markets with short turnaround times.
Because the future can be closer than you think.
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