Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, art, creativity, inspiration, practice, Thoughts, Writers, writing on September 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Whether you want to draw, write, or some other creativity, this is pretty good advice.
The Artist Who Couldn’t Draw | The Kid Should See This
Roger didn’t like his drawings. He didn’t feel that he had any drawing talent. But then a girl named Zoe moved next door and handed him a magic black pen.
The lesson? Sometimes it helps to take things literally.
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Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, inspiration, life, persist, Thoughts, Writers, writing on September 12, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“Awful first drafts are fine—Agree with this. If you don’t finish something, you’ll never get in the game. Just quell the voice in your head that says “Are you kidding? No one is going to want to read this drivel” and keep on going.”
― Jamie Freveletti
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Posted in Entertainment, Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, Canada, creativity, inspiration, mystery, Thoughts, treasure hunt on September 10, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Are you a fan of puzzles, or mysteries, secrets or treasure? Then perhaps you will be interested to hear about the latest in a tradition of hidden treasure games like The Secret:
A $1 million treasure hunt is underway in Canadian wilderness | Popular Science
An actual treasure chest filled with around $1 million in gold coins is hidden somewhere in Canada. However, the mystery isn’t tied to a centuries’ old pirate bounty or unsolved bank heist, however. These riches were instead intentionally hidden by a mining consortium to celebrate the country’s “rich mining heritage and spirit of adventure.”
The clues are presented in the form of a 13-stanza poem. Have I already asked AI for its opinion on this poem? Maybe. Is it fun that one of the top contenders for the secret stash spot is a place I go to on the regular? It is! And while I doubt that I’ll spend much more time on this, it’s an entertaining idea.
(Speaking of entertaining, I expect that Josh Gates, TV host, explorer, and aficionado of similar puzzle/treasure hunts, will be doing a show on this at some point.)
Because this game is sponsored by a Canadian mining company, the winner will have to be a Canadian citizen to claim the prize.* Sorry (not sorry)!
You have until the end of 2026 to find it.
If nothing else, it’s a fun boost for poetry and a good excuse to get out in nature (explore responsibly, folks!).
Regardless, the hunt is on!
* Although what’s to stop someone from finding it, enlisting a Canadian to cash in the prize, then becoming enmeshed in a sea of ever-shifting lies and betrayals as each party battles to claim the full amount, opening up endless avenues for dramatic retellings and fictionalized accounts? Why, nothing!
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Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, creativity, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers on September 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
― Mother Theresa
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, art, creativity, history, inspiration, painting, Renaissance, Thoughts, Writers, writing on September 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »
One of the best ways to understand art and think about developing your own abilities is to study those who came before. That applies to writers, musicians, painters and more. I’m going to go out on a pretty short limb and say that every master crafter out there had a “see Spot run” or “macaroni and string” phase.
The problem is that we don’t see that, we see their masterpieces. And that can be inspiring but also discouraging. How did they make the leap from macaroni to the Mona Lisa*?
That’s an excellent if somewhat off-base question. Because for most artists, that transition isn’t a leap at all. It’s more of a journey, and anyone can go on one of those. (Consider how often you hear someone being called an overnight success, and they laugh and say, “Yeah, but it took years.”)
Here’s an example from the art world.
Raphael is now considered one of the three great masters from the High Renaissance. (Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo being the other two, so he had a high bar to reach. My point is that he didn’t start out at the top.)
Where did he begin, how did he improve, and what lessons does his progress give to aspiring artists out there?
How Raphael Became A Master – YouTube
This video provides an in-depth look at the what, when and how of it all. Hopefully it can also provide some encouragement to anyone working to improve, regardless of their art form.
And while it’s true that talent helps and that there are child prodigies out there (looking at you, Mozart!), most who achieve excellence do it exactly the way you are doing it: setting goals, studying what works, and practice, practice, practice.
* A note on the title: I know that the Mona Lisa was Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, and Raphael painted a lot of Madonnas, but given that titling this piece “From Macaroni to Madonna” seemed more likely to evoke ’80s pop music rather than classical art, I went with this instead. (Although to be honest, I’m feeling a little bad about this decision and may change it later!)
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, #wotf39, Analog, inspiration, Writers, writing on August 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »
I love it when what I’m reading crystallizes my thoughts into something beautiful.
Here’s one such case, where friend and fellow Writer of the Future Arthur H. Manners captured (in Analog, no less!) the essence of a question I have all the time: Even as we look ahead to the future, how will the future see us?
by Arthur H. Manners
When they look back at us,
stumbling on petrified arXiv
in the tombs of the
internet like a
Cretaceous mosquito
trapped in amber,
will they distinguish our
grandest theories of
quantum gravity
from red ochre bison
painted on the walls of
Lascaux caves?
…
Visit Analog to read the rest of the poem, and for more of Arthur’s excellent work, including online shorts and the detailed hard-science Sci-Fi Writer’s Guide to Reality, check out his site!
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, Hugo Awards, inspiration, sff, speculative fiction, Writers, writing on August 24, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Who won Hugo Awards at this’s year’s Worldcon in Seattle? So glad you asked.
Here’s the final list!
2025 Hugo Awards – The Winners | Pixelated Geek
All nominees are included, with winners in bold. Congratulations to awardees, and to everyone on the roster!
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Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, inspiration, quoteandaprettypicture, Thoughts on August 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.”
― Howard Thurman
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Posted in Other, Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, astronauts, heroes, inspiration, NASA, Thoughts on August 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Astronaut James Lovell, Apollo 13 commander, dies at 97
“James Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13 who helped turn a failed moon mission into a triumph of on-the-fly can-do engineering, has died. He was 97.”
(If you’re curious, here’s a quick refresher on the Apollo program.)
And because so many of us know of Lovell from the excellent movie version of his most famous mission, here’s Tom Hanks’ appreciation:
Tom Hanks pays tribute to Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell
“There are people who dare, who dream, and who lead others to the places we would not go on our own. Jim Lovell, who for a long while had gone farther into space and for longer than any other person of our planet, was that kind of guy.”
Here’s to the brave, to the can-do, to the explorers among us. Humanity is the better for you.
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Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2025, fun, inspiration, Saturdays, Thoughts on August 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »
J.R. Johnson 
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