Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, inspiration, quotes, Thoughts, Writers on October 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, quotes, Thoughts, Tuesdays on October 5, 2021| Leave a Comment »
My brain is just about broken. This quote from one of my favorite fun authors fits right in:
“2.5.03.02.005: Generally speaking, if you fiddle with something, it will break. Don’t.”
― Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey
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Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, family, fun, Mark Twain, quotes, Samuel Clemens, Thoughts, Writers, writing on October 4, 2021| Leave a Comment »
A long-time family friend always says goodbye by saying “Be good!” My father always answers the same way: “Have fun!”
You can see which side Samuel Clemens occupied.
I at least try to split the difference.
Posted in Food and..., Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, home, Thoughts, writing on October 3, 2021| Leave a Comment »
You know those days when hoped-for sun never arrives and the design project that should have taken half an hour takes three and the pears you thought would be perfect in a fruit torte are rock hard and the bananas you need today aren’t anywhere near ripe, even after you bake them in a 300F oven for an hour?
It’s that kind of day.
So, ok, not great. But then I came up with not one but two solutions to the design issue and turned the pears into slow-cooked lemon, cinnamon and cardamom pear butter and made blueberry Grand Marnier tortes and I can work around the banana problem, I probably didn’t need the extra sugar anyway.
And you know what? It’s fine if the sun doesn’t come out today.
I’m shining on the inside.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, climate change, creativity, Fiction, free fiction, genre fiction, inspiration, sff, writing on October 2, 2021| Leave a Comment »
The good news is that there is a lot of up and coming fiction addressing issues of climate, change, and the environment. (The bad news is that we need it.)
Grist/Fix: Solutions Lab has a new climate fiction issue out, with discussions about the role of fiction in fixing reality and a dozen new stories from their “Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors” short story contest to get us started.
The Climate Fiction Issue: How fiction can change our reality | Fix
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Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, Fiction, inspiration, J.R.R. Tolkien, Thoughts, Writers on October 1, 2021| Leave a Comment »
I vote for this as one of the feel-good stories of the year. Because what’s happier than real-life hobbits?
‘What is this if not magic?’ The Italian man living as a hobbit
“I decided that I wanted to live my hobbit life to the fullest… I wanted people to enter my mind, my fantasy. Many make fun of us. Some think I am trying to escape from reality. Far from it. I am living my dream, my adventure.”
— Nicolas Gentile, hobbit
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Good for you, Italian hobbit man, good for you.
Posted in Holidays, Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, history, Indigenous art, inspiration, progress, Thoughts on September 30, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Today is Canada’s first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
It’s good to see at least some progress on long-overdue Indigenous issues, but it also raises a question. How do we deal with difficult topics? Expression, sharing, recognition, and dialog are constructive options, and art plays a fundamental role in each of these elements.
9 Indigenous musicians reflect on what truth and reconciliation means to them | CBC News
This article interviews Indigenous creators, about their art and their thoughts on reconciliation, and also includes links to their work. I particularly like this quote from Inuk singer-songwriter and filmmaker Elisapie:
“Like I always say, this is our story. But this is definitely your story, too. So get on with it and discuss and face those uncomfortable questions and try to find the answers, too, right?”
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I also like this quote from Murray Sinclair:
“I did say … at the end of the TRC report that we will not achieve reconciliation in my lifetime. We will probably not achieve it in the lifetime of my children. We may not even achieve it in the lifetime of my grandchildren,” Sinclair, a former senator and chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), told Unreserved host Rosanna Deerchild.
“But if we make a concerted effort … then eventually we will be able, some day, to wake up and, to our surprise, find that we are treating each other in a way that was intended when contact was first made.”
— National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is 1 step on a long journey, says Murray Sinclair | CBC Radio
So here’s to what’s hard getting easier. And to waking up.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on September 29, 2021| Leave a Comment »
I recently finished a book that should have checked all my boxes, but in the end… didn’t. The characters started off interesting but came down with a case of the stupids and never fully recovered.* The characters also spent most of their time floating around like bobbers on an unbaited line. When they eventually found their purpose it was too late, and the book finished before actually ending.
When a story is like that I find my mind stays twisted up in it, fidgeting with its edges, trying to work out how it should have fit together rather than how it did. Like a jumbled Rubik’s Cube made of words. A stream flowing in the wrong direction. Or an itch I can’t scratch.
Sometimes that itch gets to the point where I find I have to Do Something about it.
Once upon a time I read a British coming-of-age novel called I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. I remember it as charming and it mostly worked for me, at least until the end. I finished the book and thought, “Nope, I’m afraid that won’t do.” And as an exercise for the annoyed problem-solver at the back of my mind, I rewrote the final chapters.
I moved a stack of Jim Butcher books yesterday and happened upon that new ending. It now sits on my bookshelf next to the original book.
Sometimes what you need is to step back and think, “This little piece of the world could be better.” And then work to make it so.
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* This is, of course, just my opinion. At some point you may read the same book and think, “That was the most brilliant and lyrical story ever.” That’s cool too.
Posted in Likes, Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, family, meteor shower, NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day on September 28, 2021| 1 Comment »
Today’s Astronomy Photo of the Day is a video, two and a half minutes of the Perseid meteor shower as seen from the Indian Astronomical Observatory in Hanle, India.
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Watching this takes me back. We would wake up at three in the morning and head to the back yard to watch meteors burn through the atmosphere. I’d anchor myself on Orion, my first and still favorite constellation, then watch the sky for the next magical streak of green.
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Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, action, inspiration, quotes, Thoughts, work on September 27, 2021| Leave a Comment »
“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”
― Carl Gustav Jung
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