“One is not born, but rather becomes, oneself.” — Simone de Beauvoir
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Posts Tagged ‘Thoughts’
Becoming
Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on June 4, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Getting the Sad Out
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, #messyfeels, creativity, current events, drabble, Fiction, free to be, music, Thoughts, Writers, writing on June 3, 2026| Leave a Comment »
I try to keep things fairly light here, so when I write a piece that is… not that, I can end up in a bit of a bind.
Do I share because that’s where I was on that particular day? I don’t, usually. For example, I recently wrote a drabble that has not even a sprinkling of humor to lighten the mood. That’s how it goes sometimes.
I’ve been writing less than I’d like, and what I do write is darker than I’d like. It’s easy to get distracted by the world. But that’s also our context right now, and what we need to get through in order to move on to the next better thing.
It’s like football great Rosey Grier’s classic song, “It’s Alright to Cry”:
“It’s all right to cry
Crying gets the sad out of you.”
So today I’m going to share one of my darker drabbles, because what is art if not a reflection of the maker’s time and place? (But I’ll add an extra step to view here in case this isn’t your thing right now.* I get it!)
Remember I Love You
“I love you,” she would say as I ran outside.
Determined, I searched for water, scrap metal or other goods extricated from the rubble. Fuel, usually the kind that used to be someone’s house. Food, always.
Anything to keep the family going. I learned that from my mother.
She stayed with my little brother. He stopped crying two days ago.
“Remember I love you,” she’d say, her eyes turned away from the morning sun. She watched our last pot simmer, making stew with whatever she could find.
Her hand could still grasp the wooden spoon.
She had three fingers left.
Told you it was dark. But if that’s the rain, I think we’ve earned a rainbow!
* With apologies to my email subscribers, who apparently get the unfiltered version.
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Like a Good Human
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, advice, creativity, Thoughts on June 1, 2026| Leave a Comment »
“Be kind and fun to work with. Be honest, but never cruel. Tell people when their ideas are good and mean it.” — Brad Neely‘s advice for artists
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Another Thing About the Moon
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, astronomy, look up!, micromoon, moon, science, Thoughts on May 31, 2026| Leave a Comment »
If you missed yesterday’s blue moon, don’t worry, it will still look full tonight too. And as I should also have mentioned, it’s a micromoon (the opposite of a supermoon). The moon is at apogee, or as far from us as it can get. Right now, that’s about 251,000 miles away.
Here’s a NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day showing the difference between a supermoon and a micromoon. It’s not nothing!
If you have a chance to see the (almost) full moon tonight, count yourself lucky. The next blue micromoon won’t happen until 2053.
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Make the Good
Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, graduation, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers on May 27, 2026| Leave a Comment »
“I don’t think fantasy really works except when Gandalf says, ‘You don’t get to choose your moment, you just have to live it… He was right—you don’t get to choose the moment—we’re here, we have to live it… by the time you are my age, a lot will have gone down. I want you to focus on the good and to try and make the good in a team effort.” — Kim Stanley Robinson, 2026 Middlebury College Commencement Address
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One Small but Important Thing
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, creativity, inspiration, non-fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on May 26, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Today I want to share a fun non-fiction essay by one of my favorite fiction writers, T. Kingfisher. It’s about history and gardening and passion, real-life inspiration for fiction, and heroes saving one small but important thing.
History, Discovery, and the Quiet Heroics of Gardening – Reactor
So what does all this mean, for a writer? Well, it may not be holding the bridge at Thermopylae, but I keep coming back to how many gardeners end up saving a small piece of the world. Whether it’s a food from a lost homeland or a cultivar that is about to vanish from the earth, so often it comes down to one person who kept something small but important from being lost forever.
May we all be so heroic.
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To Democracy and Freedom, On Memorial Day
Posted in Holidays, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, gratitude, Thoughts on May 25, 2026| Leave a Comment »
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” —John F. Kennedy
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That’s Nice, Actually
Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, rainy day, Thoughts on May 24, 2026| Leave a Comment »
It’s raining today, but whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing depends on me.
“Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet.”
— Roger Miller
I’d like the first one, please!
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Our Business Is to Create
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on May 23, 2026| Leave a Comment »
If you’ve ever read a book and thought, “I will never write anything this good,” and feel the urge to give up your own creative efforts, this article may be for you:
The thing every writer needs to overcome – Big Think
It’s common to feel embarrassed, shy, and self-conscious when we are writing. It’s easy to feel the need to be different when someone else has done it so well already. But, as the saying goes, the woods would be very silent if the only birds that sang were those who sang best. So, sing anyway. Sing badly, sing well, sing as much as you can… The point was never to out-sing the nightingale; our “business is to create.”
What also helps? Not taking myself too seriously!
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By No Means
Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2026, Thoughts on May 22, 2026| Leave a Comment »
“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” ― John Lubbock
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