“To survive, you must tell stories.”
— Umberto Eco
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Posts Tagged ‘inspiration’
Wishing You Happy Endings
Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, ideas, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 31, 2025| Leave a Comment »
To a Future of Promise and Ingenuity
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, #ChooseYourFuture, books, climate, climate change, climate fiction, creativity, environment, free fiction, green futures, inspiration, Writers on January 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Perhaps you remember me mentioning the submission call for this year’s Grist climate collection. Folks submitted (1200 of them!), editors did their editing thing, and now we have a brand new collection of free climate stories for 2025!
Here’s the full collection, including twelve new stories with the goal of looking “beyond the current moment to picture what could be.”
Imagine 2200 climate fiction contest: The 2025 collection – Grist
Welcome to the 2025 Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors collection. For four years, this contest has celebrated stories that invite us to imagine the future we want — futures in which climate solutions flourish and we all thrive. These stories have never pretended the path will be easy — some of the most compelling Imagine stories showcase the struggle as well as the successes — but they all offer the promise that through the transformative power of radical imagining, we can envision a better world and work toward making it our reality.
Yes, please!
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Art Is Inevitable
Posted in Other, Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, art, creativity, inspiration, NASA, space on January 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »
A NASA astronaut may have just taken the best photo from space—ever
Check out the article for the specific photo, but this is from the same series:
For more of Astro Don’s imagery, see his photos at the Portraits of a Planet exhibit, his book Spaceborne, or find him on social media.
“Art is an inevitable consequence of being human – even in space.”
— Donald R. Pettit
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To Dreams, and Waking
Posted in Holidays, Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, action, inspiration, persistence, progress, Thoughts on January 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day, everyone! Today, I plan to celebrate the beauty of dreams, and the satisfaction of bringing those dreams to life.
“Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more about Dr King, his impact, speeches like “I Have a Dream” and more, check out History’s site on Martin Luther King Jr.
I also appreciate this related quote:
“The best way to make a dream come true is to wake up.”
— Anna Wintour
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If We So Choose
Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, #ChooseYourFuture, books, creativity, inspiration, Octavia Butler, predictions, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »
My mother sent me an article about Octavia Butler, one of a number I’ve seen recently in the wake of the LA fires. Butler was an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author know for her all-too-realistic versions of the future. Although she died in 2006, a week of devastating fires in LA fit right in with her vision of 2025.
In fact, she was once asked how she was able to predict the problems of the future as accurately as she did, and her answer is a telling lesson for writers but also for people who want to make a difference.
“A Few Rules for Predicting the Future” by Octavia E. Butler – Seven Good Things
“I didn’t make up the problems,” I pointed out. “All I did was look around at the problems we’re neglecting now and give them about 30 years to grow into full-fledged disasters.”
Ouch.
But that’s not all Butler said. I recommend you read the essay in full. It’s not long, but it packs a punch.
“Okay,” the young man challenged. “So what’s the answer?”
“There isn’t one,” I told him.
“No answer? You mean we’re just doomed?” He smiled as though he thought this might be a joke.
“No,” I said. “I mean there’s no single answer that will solve all of our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers, at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.”
I so choose, and I hope you do, too.
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The Year in Space
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, astronomy, cool stuff is cool, innovation, inspiration, science on January 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Welcome to the new year! Here’s what you can expect from space in 2025 (including a new way of studying the solar corona that looks enough like the Millennium Falcon to be extra fun):
Look up! Here’s what’s to watch for in space in 2025 – NPR
After a spectacular 2024, which featured a year of wonder in the skies, including a total solar eclipse and rare sightings of the northern lights, 2025 is set to bring even more astronomical events.
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If You’re a Unicorn, Be a Unicorn
Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, inspiration, Thoughts on December 20, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“Whether it’s money, grades, promotions, popularity, attention, or just plain material things we want, scientists agree: seeking out external rewards is a sure path to sabotaging our own happiness.”
― Jane McGonigal
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Crawling, but Still Looking at the Sky
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, inspiration, space, tedium of, Thoughts on December 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Between work and vaccine side effects and more work, today feels a little tedious. Time is crawling, and it feels like everything is taking a very looooong time.
What better day to remind myself that it could be much much worse? (Seriously, how many movies would I have to watch to fill the time it takes to get to Mars?)
If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel – A tediously accurate map of the solar system
That does actually make me feel better.
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Some (Mon)days
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, #HollowEarthIsntAsCoolAsThis, geology, ideas, inspiration, science on December 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Some (Mon)days you might just want to get away. Or maybe you’re just a huge fan of that classique of modern cinema, The Core.
What If You Just Keep Digging? – YouTube
Have you ever thought, “what if I just dug a really really deep hole?”
Well, the USSR actually did. The hole they dug is deeper than the deepest part of the ocean. It’s deeper than Mt. Everest is tall! They began digging it in the 1970s as part of a space race, but down. The United States only got to 600 ft before pulling funding. But the USSR kept going for 20 years. They made it about a third of the way through the Earth’s crust and then STOPPED.
But what if… you just… kept… digging?
If you dug a hole to the center of the Earth, what would you find? What would happen to you? And what does our newest tech tell us is REALLY down below your feet?
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Be the Tortoise
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, inspiration, quotes, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 14, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“I deal with writer’s block by lowering my expectations. I think the trouble starts when you sit down to write and imagine that you will achieve something magical and magnificent—and when you don’t, panic sets in. The solution is never to sit down and imagine that you will achieve something magical and magnificent. I write a little bit, almost every day, and if it results in two or three or (on a good day) four good paragraphs, I consider myself a lucky man. Never try to be the hare. All hail the tortoise.”
— Malcolm Gladwell
If you can do more, great, but either way, keep going. You’ve got this.
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