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Posts Tagged ‘creativity’

The Options Are Limitless!

Posted in Entertainment, Funny, Likes, Reviews, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »

I ran through a number of possibilities for today’s installment of #ThingsILike. Allow me to take you on a tour:
(tl;dr? Limitless is awesome:)

Option #1: Delightfully Precocious Investigative Journalist Hilde Kate Lysiak (Age 9)
Consider, if you will, the nine-year old reporter from Pennsylvania doing her best (and it’s good) to report serious news in her hometown. Hilde Kate Lysiak publishes the Orange Street News from Selinsgrove, PA, and she’s not writing puff pieces about puppies or flowers. Her story went viral when she reported on a murder that took place early April just a few blocks from her house. I can’t wait to see what she can do by the time she gets her driver’s license.

Option #2: Call A Random Swede
I also discovered that Sweden (yes, the country) has its own phone number. Dial the number (it is international, so watch those fees!) and you will be connected to a random Swede.

That’s right, thousands of people have signed up to participate in this program, and incoming calls are randomly shunted to one of them when a call comes through. Call one minute and you might find yourself speaking with a professor in Uppsala, call the next minute and you could be put in touch with a (let’s say) restauranteur from Stockholm or Volvo employee in Arvika.

No guarantees that caller and callee will speak a common language, but that’s part of the fun. There’s just no telling! Suggested topics of conversation include meatballs (yum), darkness (it’s like fine wine in France, they have a lot of the stuff but not everywhere), and feminism (yeah, my family’s ancestral homeland is awesome). All in the name of tourism, of course, but what a great way to humanize another culture.

What’s the number, you ask? Why, it’s + 46 771 793 336 🙂

Option #3: Limitless
Both of the above topics are fun, but in the end I decided to go with something a bit closer to my writerly wheelhouse: Limitless.

The show is based on the movie of the same name. (Time to fess up: I watched the beginning of the movie but somehow never quite made it to the end. It may have had something to do with the initial portrayal of the writer as unmotivated loser. Maybe;)

Here’s a short description from CBS: Limitless is “is a fast-paced drama about Brian Finch, who discovers the brain-boosting power of the mysterious drug NZT and is coerced by the FBI into using his extraordinary cognitive abilities to solve complex cases for them…”

Sounds like a fine (if potentially generic) crime/investigative show. Except that it is nothing like your average CSI.

When I heard the initial chatter about the series my dominant reaction was “meh.” What could they bring to the table as a series? A lot, it turns out. If you’re a fan of deep, serious drama look elsewhere (admittedly, I’m often not), but what the show does, it does very well.

I like speculative fiction and I like humor, and like peanut butter and chocolate, the two are often better together. Limitless is one such case. The writers (and everyone else involved) are blending both humor and serious stakes together into one great whole. Breaking the fourth wall doesn’t begin to capture it. We are always happy to see an episode on the PVR, but we make sure to watch it after dinner. That way we won’t be distracted by an errant tomato and miss a quip, creative visual set piece, or hilarious aside.

Sure, it’s a (mostly) lighthearted TV show, but that doesn’t mean it can’t do fun and interesting things with characters, plot, and presentation. Creative, innovative and downright fun, I’m enjoying the heck out of this show. And as I mentioned, it’s not a show I initially expected to like.

The cast features established faces (including Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Ron Rifkin) and (for me at least) newer ones, including the charismatic and entertaining Jake McDorman. While Bradley Cooper serves as executive producer and sometime guest star, the dynamics between McDorman and Jennifer Carpenter are what anchor the show. I recommend you start at the beginning of Season 1 rather than try to pop in mid-way for best effect.

Why bring this up today? Because I realized that there are only two episodes left in the season and CBS has yet to renew. Prospects look good but after all the television-related heartbreak (of course I’m looking at you Firefly, but there are many more), I wanted to speak up.

If you’re in the market for good, geeky fun dished out with sides of humor and crime-fighting, Limitless is for you.

/recommended

This has been today’s edition of #ThingsILike, sent from my writerly Headquarters (with an exclamation point!).

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Fail Gloriously!

Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 30, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Don’t fear failure. — Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.

— Bruce Lee

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Always Through

Posted in Likes, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 18, 2016| Leave a Comment »

I’m banging my head against a data problem so I’ll have to set aside the in-depth and incisive essay on the mating habits of Salarian scientists I had planned (so sad, but maybe next week;).

Instead, today’s thing I like is this image and the sheer effort the landscape represents. It’s also a shout-out to my Irish relatives (currently recovering from St. Patrick’s Day) and to the fact that people have been solving problems for millennia. Look at those walls, that can’t have been easy:)

The best way out is always through.
― Robert Frost

So, persistence for the win. With that in mind, back to work!

 

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No More Saucy Wenches for Me!

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 16, 2016| 4 Comments »

Today I want to spotlight a collection of writing advice. It comes via OWW, the Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. OWW is a fee-based workshop but this advice is available to all.

These short essays discuss topics on writing in general, how to get your work read (if you’re into workshops like OWW, or the free Critters or Codex, for example), and the publishing business overall. I like Nicola Griffith’s piece about avoiding cliches:*

Don’t write “her heart stopped” unless you mean she died. Don’t talk about saucy serving wenches in an inn where the beef stew is thick and hearty and the ale is fresh, nutty, and strong… Why aren’t “serving wenches” ever tired, middle-aged women? Why is the beer rarely yellow, or thin, or cloudy with sediment?

So true.** There’s a reason the average human lives a much longer and healthier life than their ancestors did just a century ago:

In Japan, 72 has become the new 30, as the likelihood of a 72-year-old modern-day person dying is the same as a 30-year-old hunter-gatherer ancestor who lived 1.3 million years ago.

Modern sanitation, medicine and quality infrastructure (for those handy extras like clean drinking water) for the win!

So, keep a weather eye out for dangerous and terrifying pitfalls you have to escape in the nick of time as you navigate the winding path of language clichés:) But keep writing. Remember, all’s well that ends well! (And that’s just about enough of that;)

While we’re on the subject of advice, I’ll supplement the OWW site and my previous posts on writing advice with a link from Brain Pickings. This collection of wisdom is from a variety of writers, genre and otherwise:

#49: Neil Gaiman’s Advice to Aspiring Writers
“You have to finish things — that’s what you learn from, you learn by finishing things.”

Some of this advice may not apply to you; I tend not to relate to Bukowski, for example. But some of it may, and I hope it’s useful.

Since I’m throwing in everything but the kitchen sink today, let me close with this great post from Elizabeth Bear: “everybody’s scared of things that they don’t understand and all the living they don’t do.”

Accept that there will be a lot of failures along the way, and that you can come back from nearly any mistake that doesn’t involve making a left turn in front of an oncoming semi.

Excellent advice.

Write, rewrite, finish. Do it again.

…………
* Some of the examples are also about uncomfortable -isms. Racism and sexism, for instance, are more problematic than simple clichés and should be resolved at a deeper level. Obviously.
** As a side note, if you’re curious about what and how people ate in the Western Middle Ages, SF Canada writer Krista D. Ball has a detailed and useful book on realism in fantasy food: What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank.

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The Power of Fiction

Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 4, 2016| Leave a Comment »

A friend with a shared love for Harry Potter sent me a link the other day. Some creative and determined person decided to make a Weasley clock.*
The magical ‘Harry Potter’ location clock exists in DIY form

For those who may have missed this detail from the HP book and/or movie, the Weasley clock is a magical JK Rowling invention that tracks each Weasley family member’s location and displays it on an antique clock face.

Rowling thought it up, and a Muggle made it real. How cool is that?

So with thanks to my friend, today’s installment of #ThingsILike is the real-world power of fiction.

*

“If you just focus on what you know, you’re blinding yourself to new opportunities.”
— Tyler Jacks, MIT

There are a lot of discussions of this topic out there, both contemporary and historical, but it’s a point I like to touch on periodically. A writer imagines a thing and someone else finds a way to make it real.

That’s magic right there.

This applies to specific items like the clock but also to everything from emotional states to broader goals. Want to generate ideas, stir up communal interest, and apply creativity to complex problems like living in space long-term? Tap the power of fiction:
The White House Wants To Use Science Fiction To Settle The Solar System

How to get into space? Excite the minds of young (and not so young) people with stirring tales of adventures in space. This applies to stories from Asimov, Clarke and other Golden Age of Science Fiction authors, but also to more recent blockbusters like Andy Weir’s The Martian.

The latter was particularly good at building future versions of current technologies, and NASA was happy to help Weir build his fictional (for now) world from the Popular Science article on the support NASA gave Ridley Scott as he turned the book into a blockbuster movie:

If you want to understand why it is that NASA loves The Martian and is so gung ho for this movie, you have to realize that this movie more or less presents exactly their future vision, minus all the drama.

*

I’ve cited this quote before but it’s so fitting I’ll use it again:

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

That’s the power of fiction.

———

* There may be other such clocks out there (in fact, I hope there are) but this is the version that caught my attention. Feel free to build more!

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Impostor Syndrome

Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Today’s entry for #ThingsILike is Impostor Syndrome. Let me be clear, I don’t enjoy feeling like a fraud. What I do like is that I’m not alone when I do. My advisor introduced me to the term in grad school and gave me a gift: he told me that practically everyone at our prestigious and accomplished institution had it. It just wasn’t something people talked about.

Ok, maybe what I really like is the fact that the today’s connectivity means I don’t feel like the only one, be it re: impostor syndrome or sci-fi fandom, POC or what have you. Still, today is as good a time for a pep talk as any. Let’s get to it:)

A lot of people feel like frauds at some point in their lives. The topic came up for me this week because Mary Robinette Kowal has a good piece about it on her site. (If her gaming analogy doesn’t work for you feel free to come up with your own.)

Have you ever felt like a fake, attributed your accomplishments to luck or some external reason, or downplayed your success even though on paper you might look pretty darn impressive? If you’re asking yourself “Who hasn’t?” well, you know about impostor syndrome.

(Quick, here’s a pretty picture to keep your spirits up. That’s you, taking in the view on your way to the top. It only looks like someone else’s behind:)

Impostor syndrome is so common that CalTech has a page on it for its students, and everyone from Forbes to Geek Feminism Wiki to the American Psychological Association wants to help people work through it. (And that’s just from the first Google search page:)

I like Mary’s take on impostor syndrome as a way to tell that you are making progress, working hard, and facing down problems that feel too big to handle. (The key here is “feel.” Feels are fine and all but emotion is interpretation, and not necessarily fact.)

Impostor Syndrome means that you are winning.

I think that’s great.

Speaking of progress and how to make more of it, there’s a great TED talk with relevance here. Rather than seeing challenges as a binary yes or no, can I or can’t I? Carol Dweck argues that it helps to think about targets as yes or not yet. That “yet” is the crucial modifier. The brain is built to learn, you just have to chill out, keep going and give yourself a chance.

Do that, and not yet can become yesterday’s accomplishment. Now I’m off to take my own advice:)

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What Now? Check Out a Ukulele at the Library

Posted in Entertainment, Likes, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 12, 2016| 1 Comment »

What’s this, what’s this? Libraries that will let you check out musical instruments plus have a librarian trained to help patrons with the tricky bits? That’s something I like.

Pennsylvania Libraries Will Let You Check Out a Ukulele
There’s a strange sound emerging from some Pennsylvania libraries. It’s not the sound of pages turning or scanners scanning—it’s the distinctive dainty, nimble strum that comes from a ukulele.

Even in the age of the internet libraries are incredible resources, and this just adds to the awesome. Not that I play ukelele, but that’s kind of the point. Libraries let you sample a wide variety of knowledge, experience, and perspectives. Yesterday a Moroccan cookbook, today space opera, tomorrow ukelele:)

How great is that?

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Adventure, Past and Future

Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 10, 2016| 1 Comment »

It’s snowing! It’s pretty! All is right with the world.

The past few weeks of above-freezing temperatures and no snow have been, for lack of a better word, weird. It reminds me of the time I spent in Arizona, and my first warm Christmas. Seventy degrees on Christmas? In the Northern Hemisphere? Weird. I thought I’d be happy to get away from the cold and snow but I guess childhood imprinting isn’t so easy to escape.

I’ve also been thinking about the desert for a story I’m working on. Remembering the dry expanse stretching to the horizon, tenacious scrub clinging to the sides of dry riverbeds and the clarity of the air at dawn. Thinking about the challenges of crossing such a place in an era before the things Americans tend to take for granted, like functional highways, a network of gas stations and cars that didn’t blow a tire every 50 miles. And I stumbled across this fascinating article in the Smithsonian’s Air & Space magazine, about a network of alien markings giant concrete arrows crisscrossing the continent.

giant arrow

 

Before satellites, real-time GPS or other modern navigation systems, pilots had to be able to see where they were going. They couldn’t fly at night or in bad weather, and figuring out where they were was a complicated affair involving tools like a compass, maps (on paper!) and a bit of guesswork.

Some towns painted their names in oversized block letters on rooftops to help pilots get their bearings. And sometimes—like when navigational delays slowed down transcontinental air mail delivery* after 1920**—the government saw the need for a more comprehensive solution to the problem and stepped in. In this case they built a system of 70-foot-long concrete arrows pointing the way:

The government built a path of 70-foot-long concrete arrows every few miles from coast to coast, each painted yellow and topped with a 51-foot steel tower that had a rotating beacon. Using the path, an airmail pilot needed only half the time to deliver a letter from New York to San Francisco.

Eventually technology caught up with our demands and the markers were abandoned. Where are these markers now? An intrepid couple named Brian and Charlotte Smith wanted to know the answer and embarked on A Quest (because let’s face it, it’s hard to get anything significant done without A Quest).

They go on road trips to investigate these remnants of a bygone era, and now you can too. With the help of drone lessons from their nine-year old grandson, they’ve assembled photos and a database of marker locations.

The core idea of this story resonates with me. It’s the same childhood fascination I had for the Pony Express or the challenges of nineteenth-century explorers. For me, it’s hard to read a piece like this and not conjure up a daring young Lady Adventurer winging her way across an untamed landscape on a new world, with nothing but a few isolated markers to keep her on track.***

Marvelous!

—–

* FYI, I love the USPS and public libraries and Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System. These and other basic infrastructure**** projects help make us a better connected, better educated country and have impacted everything from social mobility to what we eat for dinner.

** Before 1920, if you wanted to send a letter to your cool aunt in San Francisco, for example, it went via methods like stagecoach or boat or train. Slooooooow. Or you could send a telegram and tell the whole world your business… like Twitter, actually.

*** A lot like Beryl Markham, actually.

**** (A footnote within a footnote. Does that make it a toenote?) I just want to include the definition of infrastructure and ask lawmakers responsible for assigning project funds, how is this optional?

Infrastructure: The basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise.

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Some of the Best from Tor.com 2015

Posted in Entertainment, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Today’s free fiction is a Best of 2015 collection from Tor.com. Available in PDF, EPUB & MOBI formats, the book download requires free login. Note that these and all other Tor.com stories are available free online but it’s great to get a prepackaged anthology as a jumping off point.

Some of the Best from Tor.com 2015

The stories were acquired by editors Ellen Datlow, Claire Eddy, Carl Engle-Laird, Liz Gorinsky, David G. Hartwell, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Beth Meacham, Marco Palmieri, and Ann VanderMeer.

Enjoy!

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Locus + Recommended + Free

Posted in Entertainment, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »

The 2015 Locus Recommended Reading List

It’s the beginning of a new year and that, among other things, means year-end wrap-ups and award seasons. Locus Magazine, which has covered the science fiction and fantasy field since 1968, released its list of recommended reading for 2015. It is extensive. It covers material from novels to shorts, fantasy to non-fiction, and there seems to be something for everyone. The full list includes links or references for all entries so check it out if you want the full shebang.

If you’re short on available funds or want to sample an author before you dig deeper into their repertoire, then check out my abbreviated version below. It links to all of the list’s freely available stories (I think, although it’s a big collection and I may have missed one or two).

There’s a lot of excellent material here. I’ve read some of these pieces already but not all, and I look forward to catching up. Do check out the novels and other purchasable items too, if you have the wherewithal (and if you don’t, I highly recommend a library card!).

Enjoy!

 

NOVELLAS
‘‘Waters of Versailles’’, Kelly Robson (Tor.com 6/10/15)

NOVELETTES
‘‘And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead’’, Brooke Bolander (Lightspeed 2/15)
‘‘Islands off the Coast of Capitola, 1978’’, David Herter (Tor.com 7/8/15)
‘‘Machine Learning’’, Nancy Kress (Future Visions)
‘‘Another Word for World’’, Ann Leckie (Future Visions)
‘‘Coming of the Light’’, Chen Qiufan (Clarkesworld 3/15)
‘‘Fabulous Beasts’’, Priya Sharma (Tor.com 7/27/15)
‘‘The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild’’, Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld 1/15, 3/15)

SHORT STORIES
‘‘The Great Silence’’, Allora & Calzadilla & Ted Chiang (e-flux journal 56th Venice Biennale 5/8/2015)
‘‘Soteriology and Stephen Greenwood’’, Julia August (Unlikely Stories 10/15)
‘‘City of Ash’’, Paolo Bacigalupi (Matter 7/27/15)
‘‘Snow’’, Dale Bailey (Nightmare 6/15)
‘‘Unearthly Landscape by a Lady’’, Rebecca Campbell (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 10/15/15)
‘‘Hold-Time Violations’’, John Chu (Tor.com 10/7/15)
‘‘Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight’’, Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld 1/15)
‘‘Please Undo This Hurt’’, Seth Dickinson (Tor.com 9/16/15)
‘‘Madeleine’’, Amal El-Mohtar (Lightspeed 6/15)
‘‘A Shot of Salt Water’’, Lisa L. Hannett (The Dark 5/15)
‘‘Let Baser Things Devise’’, Berrien C. Henderson (Clarkesworld 4/15)
‘‘The Apartment Dweller’s Bestiary’’, Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld 1/15)
‘‘Cat Pictures Please’’, Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld 1/15)
‘‘Variations on an Apple’’, Yoon Ha Lee (Tor.com 10/14/15)
‘‘archival testimony fragments / minersong’’, Rose Lemberg (Uncanny 1-2/15)
‘‘The Game of Smash and Recovery’’, Kelly Link (Strange Horizons 10/17/15)
‘‘Descent’’, Carmen Maria Machado (Nightmare 2/15)
‘‘Hello, Hello’’, Seanan McGuire (Future Visions)
‘‘When Your Child Strays From God’’, Sam J. Miller (Clarkesworld 7/15)
‘‘The Smog Society’’, Chen Qiufan (Lightspeed 8/15)
‘‘The Empress in Her Glory’’, Robert Reed (Clarkesworld 4/15)
‘‘The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill’’, Kelly Robson (Clarkesworld 2/15)
‘‘Today I Am Paul’’, Martin L. Shoemaker (Clarkesworld 8/15)
‘‘The Karen Joy Fowler Book Club’’, Nike Sulway (Lightspeed 10/15)
‘‘The Pyramid of Krakow’’, Michael Swanwick (Tor.com 9/30/15)
‘‘The Lily and the Horn’’, Catherynne M. Valente (Fantasy 12/15)
‘‘Pocosin’’, Ursula Vernon (Apex 1/15)
‘‘Kaiju maximus®: ‘So Various, So Beautiful, So New’’’, Kai Ashante Wilson (Fantasy 12/15)
‘‘Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers’’, Alyssa Wong (Nightmare 10/15)
‘‘Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World’’, Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed 9/15)

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