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Posts Tagged ‘Thoughts’

“Okay, this is the wisdom. First, time spent on reconnaissanse is never wasted. Second, almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon. And finally, there is no problem on Earth that can’t be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea.”
― Jasper Fforde

I love Jasper Fforde‘s work, and some days a good book filled with witty humor and amusing characters are exactly what one needs to perk up. But if the week’s been rough and a book (or bacon or a bath or tea) don’t work, here’s advice from someone who should know, Dr. Mike Evans.

Dr. Evans is a physician and scientist who also puts together terrific animated explainers on health topics for the rest of us. The one I’ll bring to your attention today, dear readers, is perhaps perfect for a Wednesday:

 

Now, my week is going ok. Or at least not bad. I’m getting things done (although not as much as I’d like) and I’m thinking hard about ongoing projects (why are they still “ongoing”? get to it, Johnson!) and charting out goals and cooking up ideas and recipes. (In fact, I’m so embroiled that I had a hard time settling on one topic to write about. Maybe tomorrow you’ll get that essay on The Great British Baking Show or the migratory mating habits of the Feathered Frangolian Flowers of Planet P;)

Still. Sometimes you just have a bad week. For those of us who spend a lot of time working in our heads, in particular, a little external perspective can come in handy.

Once you’re back on track, Dr. Evans also has another great video useful even in weeks where things are going swimmingly:

 

Because health reasons!

And if none of that works, well, there’s always cake:)

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I’m in the mood for something positive. In that vein, here’s the start of what will probably be an irregular series of Things I Like. No sponsors, no kickbacks, just a sampling of things that I find useful or fun or funny or sweet.

As I’m writing this just after lunch, today’s Thing I Like is full-fat lemon yogurt from Riviera Petit Pots. I stumbled across this product at the grocery store while searching for a dessert that would nevertheless let me recover from a not-so-minor bout of holiday gluttony, and I’m glad I did.

This fine yogurt comes in the cutest glass bottles* and they sell reasonably-priced reusable lids to boot. The Laiterie Chalifoux company was established in 1920 and is based in Quebec (sorry, non-Canadians, I think they are a northern delight only, at least for now**). While they also make cheese and butters and creams, I’ve only found the yogurt so far. Eyes, stay on the lookout!

* I’ve liked glass bottles since the day my mother took us on a bottle hunting trip and I found a green glass medicine flask from the 1800s, miraculously still whole and wedged between the roots of a tree.

** Don’t have access to this or another really good yogurt? Don’t despair, make your own. It’s easy and more affordable than buying it from the store, and so much better. For the lactose-intolerant among us (yeah, that’s me), making your own lets you “cook” the lactose out of the final product. I find 18 hours or so does the trick.

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David Bowie 1947–2016

Bowie was a great artist and an inspiration to so many, including those of us in the science and science fiction communities. A lot will be written about him in the next while so I’ll just leave you with one small sign of his influence, on and off the planet.

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Hello, hello, greetings and salutations from 2016! I’m back home and working but I’ll admit that I’m not quite ready for the new year. I know it’s usual to plan these sorts of things before the calendar turns, but I didn’t, so I’m planning now.

Also, note to self re: Holiday Recovery… pencil in time for this next year because it’s going to happen whether you like it or not;)

It’s a new year but the same old challenges, what to do do and how to do it. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not big on resolutions. I do, however, like to take the opportunity to step back a little and think about goals and targets.

I did a lot last year but no one ever finishes every single thing on their list unless they’re aiming too low. Fall also tends to be a bit odd for me, writing and otherwise. Most of my family and holiday-related traveling is compressed into a few short months, plus NaNoWriMo in November hijacks time I’d normally spend on other plans. Then December rolls around and it’s all NaNo recovery, long car rides and Christmas shopping. Hard to get much writing done, and while I’m ok with that it does leave me in a peculiar spot come January.

Let’s see… Eggnog recovery, check. Sleep deprivation recovery, check. Catch up on missed episodes of favorite shows, check. Despair of ever managing to finish anything ever again, then get over it and move on? Check and check.

So here I am, another January with the whole year spread out in front of me like a delicious holiday smorgasbord. What to do next?

First priority: put aside the previous year’s opportunities missed and goals not quite managed, and opt not to worry about the coming year. Then ask myself what I really want to do. Next, and this is the hardest part, listen to the answer.

Onward!

 

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I came across my In Case of Emergency folder the other day. You know, the one where you list your contacts and funeral preferences and the user names for all those Gmail accounts. Yeah, that folder. I also found a note, written ages ago, and decided it was stupid to wait until my own demise (or the heat death of the universe, whichever comes first) to say it, because You Just Never Know.

Here at the end of another year seems like a good time to share.

To My Family,

I probably haven’t said this often enough, certainly not as often as you all deserve.

I love you. Always have, always will. You are all so interesting and complicated and heart-achingly wonderful.

So… there:)

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens has premiered and the hype it is a-ramping! I’m excited. Really excited, like Fanboys excited, but I can’t see the movie just yet. Why not? Why am I not suited up in a Han Solo outfit (complete with super cool hip holster) and posting this from the ticket line at my local theatre? Because Star Wars isn’t just my thing, it’s a family thing.

See, I grew up without a television. My father had a minor (read major) TV problem and realized that having one meant watching one. All the time. So no TV. What we did have was a black and white lab monitor and a tape of Star Wars. On Betamax:)

We watched that tape a lot. Until the video track died, actually, and for a while after that. Most nights after dinner, Dad would make giant bowls of popcorn spackled together with butter and salt and we’d settle on the couch for the movie.

The. Movie.

Yeah, I was that kid, the geeky one who could quote the whole thing. (Droid dialog included, of course. I can’t tell you what it means to have your mostly secret childhood obsession become the new cultural darling, but I may not have to. Maybe you were that geeky kid too. Awesome, right?)

The original Star Wars was a great movie but it was also an anchor in turbulent times. My parents split up around then, my mother had health issues, I moved to a new school. The usual kinds of transitions children go through, and need a foundation to weather well.

Star Wars, and the bond that formed with my brother and father around science fiction and fantasy, was a big part of that anchor. It’s also a big part of why I write speculative fiction. In the way only fiction can, the movie proved that the good guys can win, that wrongs can be righted, and that a scrappy band of rag-tag rebels can change the course of history. (Also that parsecs are a measure of time, support garments aren’t necessary in space, and that no matter what Obi-Wan says, stormtroopers can’t shoot worth a damn. Hey, nothing’s perfect;)

My father also read us Tolkien, and when the The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings movies came out we all went together. Now those movies are done but we have a new hope (see what I did there?;). This year I’m going home for Christmas, and for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

But, that means I won’t be able to see the movie for ten days. In the meantime? There’s time for a bit of fun:

So have a great time at the movie whenever you can get there, but #nospoilers please!

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Today I ran across a collection of tips from master writers. The Gotham Writers Workshop includes tips for aspiring writers from Elmore Leonard, George Orwell, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, P.D. James and more.

RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
— John Cage

Every – every – story is a story about people, or it sucks.
— Joss Whedon

I’ve seen a number of these suggestions before but many not. And when it’s Tuesday morning and the tea has yet to kick in, I find that every little bit helps. Happy writing!

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For all those in or of the United States, Happy Thanksgiving:)

For the first time I can remember I’m not back at my familial homestead partaking in traditional Thanksgiving Day festivities. The decision not to travel makes sense but it’s still a little weird, not least because I’m in a country where they celebrated the holiday last month (now that’s weird;).

So I’m a little sad with the missing of the family (not too sad, though, as I’ll see them in a few weeks) but feeling thankful for all the wonderful people in my life. I hope you are too.

Let me leave you with a link to John Scalzi’s science fictional Thanksgiving Day grace, which he wrote as a handy guide for those who may be called on to lead their tables in thanks. This timeless classic includes such gems as:

We also thank you for once again not allowing our technology to gain sentience, to launch our own missiles at us, to send a robot back in time to kill the mother of the human resistance, to enslave us all, and finally to use our bodies as batteries. That doesn’t even make sense from an energy-management point of view, Lord, and you’d think the robots would know that. But in your wisdom, you haven’t made it an issue yet, so thank you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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FirstSnow

This is the first real snowfall of the season and it’s still coming down. Yesterday I could pretend that winter was a thing that happened to other people but, alas, no longer!

I say alas but I’m actually coming around on the subject of winter. I ran across an article at Fast Company featuring Kari Leibowitz, a Stanford Ph.D. student who asked a fundamental question: Why don’t people in far northern Norway, a place where the sun doesn’t rise above the horizon between late November and late January, have more seasonal depression? So she went up there and asked.

The answer might surprise you. I know it surprised me, and got me thinking about winter from a different perspective.

“Why would we?”

They see winter as an opportunity, not just to take part in the snowy sports I generally don’t do, but to enjoy the indoor and outdoor beauty of the season. It’s strikingly pretty in the land of practically eternal sunset, but they also focus on what I think of as all the good bits of cold weather. Warm fires, hot chocolate, a good book, good company, cozy blankets. In fact:

Norwegians also have a word, koselig, that means a sense of coziness. It’s like the best parts of Christmas, without all the stress. People light candles, light fires, drink warm beverages, and sit under fuzzy blankets.

That sounds pretty good to me. So sure, winter is coming. Welcome!*
—–
* My Canadian overlords are happy to report that my brainwashing appears to be complete;)

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Am I doing NaNoWriMo this year? Yes. Am I doing it the way I have for the past several seasons? I am not. Here’s why I think that we should all feel ok about making NaNo into whatever works for us.

Reason One: Because why not? This whole endeavor is borderline batty anyway (in a good way!), so if you aren’t doing it for yourself, why do it at all?

Reason Two: NaNoWrMo is a tremendous opportunity to start something, and to finish something. That does not mean that we all do those things the same way or that we are all at the same stage in our particular journey.

For example, I have managed to hit my word count target every year. Yay. So I know I don’t have a problem with word production at the most basic level. Given that, it strikes me as sensible to ask how I can use this time to address some of the other issues popping up along the way.

So that’s what I’m doing this year. I’m using the month of November to focus on what is giving me trouble. Word count just doesn’t happen to be one of those issues, so I’m not focused on it right now.

I’ve made a deal with my creative side: write a decent amount a decent number of days, get back into the habit of constant production, and let me know what you need to keep the awesome ideas coming. Seriously, chocolate cake, sunset-colored drinks with umbrellas, giant cups of tea lattes from the cafe around the corner, a detailed schematic of the Death Star, you name it.

And if I need to take a day to brainstorm and that day only happens to net me a thousand words? I’m ok with that. Heck, I’m more than ok, I’m pleased as punch, because it means I’m working on the solution, not just throwing more words at the problem.

Now, I’m hardly the first person to say these things. Check out the NaNo author pep talks or any of the multitude of related discussions and you’re likely to find bits on writing in ways that work for you.

Got news for you: You don’t have to do it that way. Anything that gets words on the page is the Right Thing to Do. — Diana Gabaldon

This is the first year I’ve given myself full-on permission to do it the way that works for me. I’ve got to tell you, it feels great.

However you decide to work this month, happy noveling!

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