Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, creativity, persistence, Thoughts, Writers, writing on April 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Getting stuck is part of the process. If you’re never stuck, you’re not doing anything thrilling, important, and/or daunting. Be patient, be kind, and rather than focus on where you’re stuck, do something to shift the stuckness.
— Michael Bungay Stanier
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Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, Thoughts on April 15, 2025| Leave a Comment »
It’s Tax Day in America. On the off chance that you have yet to file, there’s still time to get your paperwork in by tonight’s deadline. Need an extension? Here are some details on how to make that happen:
When Is the 2025 Tax Deadline, How Can You Get an Extension? | TIME
It may also be comforting to know that taxes have been with us for a long, long time. Here’s a bit of ancient history on that subject.
The World’s Earliest Evidence of Taxation
What remains today, such as stone inscriptions, clay tablets and bamboo records, tells a story far beyond administration. These tax relics reveal how early states governed, what they valued and how they balanced power with the burden on taxpayers. From Sumer to China, civilizations devised ingenious, and sometimes bizarre, ways to track, collect and enforce taxes, leaving behind vivid clues of how they funded their ambitions—and proved that even in the Bronze Age, nothing was certain but death and taxes.
(And given the timeframes involved, I’m going to give this round to taxes.)
Taxes can hurt but they do have benefits. And once you’ve sent off your paperwork, check out these sweet Tax Day food deals 2025.
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Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, #becauseMonday, taxes on April 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Well, I’ve started off the day with a tax-related injury, words I never thought I’d say. Not serious but it is kind of funny.
Thanks, Monday!
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Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, Thoughts on April 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.
Delicious Ambiguity.”
― Gilda Radner
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Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, creativity, inspiration, life, Thoughts on April 12, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.”
— Mae Jemison, Doctor, Astronaut
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Posted in Entertainment, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, #ThingsMyFatherLikes, Audio, classics, free fiction, public domain, Writers, writing on April 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »
My father grew up loving the Sherlock Holmes stories. He wasn’t the only one, of course, and Sherlock has remained a driving force in modern culture since he was first invented by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Now that the books are in the public domain, there are a lot of new Holmes stories coming out, which is great. But if you want to go back to the originals and you enjoy audiobooks, consider this collection of 19 Sherlock Holmes short stories on the BBC, narrated by actor Hugh Bonneville: Sherlock Holmes Short Stories.
Sherlock Holmes Short Stories – Hugh Bonneville hosts new Sherlock Holmes series on BBC
His adventures have been enjoyed by audiences around the world for over a century with new generations discovering his thrilling tales through blockbuster films, television series, and even video games.
Now, the great detectives’ most famous mysteries are being brought to life in the new podcast Sherlock Holmes Short Stories hosted by Hugh Bonneville.
Enjoy!
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Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, #LicenseToChill, Thoughts on April 10, 2025| Leave a Comment »
This has been quite a week. Even if you don’t pay attention to the news or the markets or any of the other crazy happening over the past few days, you may have noticed the stress on the faces of those who do.
So. Today seems like a fine day to take a little walk on a beach and try to relax:)
And just for fun, Hawaii is the rainbow capital of the world. Here’s what that means.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, goals, J.R.R. Tolkien, Thoughts on April 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »
There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.
— Thorin Oakenshield
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Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, cartography, connectivity, history, maps, Thoughts, trade on April 8, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Global trade is very much in the news these days. While many of the current moves from the US seem designed to take the country back to a time when every country stood on its own, those times have, arguably, been much exaggerated. There are many historical examples of interconnectivity, from the Egyptians to the Greeks to the Romans to the Silk Road and many more, but I recently saw a very cool map that brought this idea home.
A Brilliantly Detailed Map Of Medieval Trade Routes & Networks
Even before the modern era, the Afro-Eurasian world was deeply interconnected through trade.
I found this map to be a fascinating look into a network of world trade during an era many might assume was very insular. The only thing I wish it included is travel times. How long, for example, would it have taken for cardamom to get from India to Venice to Oslo and into a loaf of braided bread?
Here’s the map from Martin Jan Månsson, part of his website, The Age of Trade:
Zoom in and be impressed!
(Bonus for your amusement: a comic on tariffs from xkcd 🙂
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, #NoWriteWay, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on April 7, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“Let’s put it this way: if you are a novelist, I think you start out with a 20 word idea, and you work at it and you wind up with a 200,000 word novel. We, picture-book people, or at least I, start out with 200,000 words and I reduce it to 20.”
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