Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, creativity, Fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing, writing advice on January 19, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Today, some useful writing advice from award-winning writer Nalo Hopkinson.
The point of fiction is to cast a spell, a momentary illusion that you are living in the world of the story. Fiction engages the senses, helps us create vivid mental simulacra of the experiences the characters are having.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, creativity, reading, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 16, 2022| Leave a Comment »
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King
That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!
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Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, Fiction, history, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers on January 12, 2022| Leave a Comment »
I’ve always liked coins.
Maybe it was my love of fantasy tales where every dragon had a horde and every economic transaction involved coinage (paper bills? what are those and why would I accept them when I could have a lovely gold piece?). Or the fact that coins encapsulate a wealth (see what I did there?) of information about a society’s evolving history, economy and culture. Or it might have had a little to do with my not-entirely-transitory pirate fixation (they were often bad, sometimes misrepresented, always fascinating).
Regardless, I like coins. Back when we still went out and touched other people’s money, I saved the shiniest examples of each new coin I came across. I have a pressed penny collection. And I love new coin designs. When they have one of my favorite female writers on them? Win!
Maya Angelou becomes the first Black woman to appear on the U.S. quarter
Check out the U.S. Mint site for more on the America Women Quarters program.
And next Christmas, shiny new Maya Angelou quarters will be on my list!
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“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”
― Maya Angelou
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Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, creativity, inspiration, invention, Thoughts, Writers on January 10, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Ha ha ha ha, this is 110% amazing!
More info and videos on this obviously critical area of scientific research:
So if humans visit underwater environments in a submarine, are these fish driving around in a supermarine?
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, creativity, inspiration, magic, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 5, 2022| Leave a Comment »
“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.”
― Carl Sagan
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, #TolkienBirthdayToast, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »
You never know whose life you’re going to touch. I trace a line between my own love of reading and writing to a relatively obscure (at the time) fantasy series read to us by my father, back to his department secretary, and eventually to Oxford professor and World War One veteran JRR Tolkien, born 130 years ago today.
Tolkien Birthday Toast: raise a glass to the Professor in honour of his 130th birthday
If book sales, movie earnings, popular culture and Peter Jackson’s knighthood are any indication, millions of other people also have a similar connection to an academic whose books were once dismissed as simple tales for children.
They were wrong about that.
Hobbits and hippies: Tolkien and the counterculture – BBC Culture
I’m taking this as a reminder to do my best. As a children’s author, chef, engineer, teacher or whatever else you may be, you never know what impact you may have.
For myself, I hope that impact stirs even a little of the positive impact Middle-Earth had for me.
The Professor!
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 30, 2021| Leave a Comment »
I went to bed thinking of New Year possibilities, and woke this morning with a quote stuck in my mind. I may not have the wording quite right and don’t remember the source, but the idea has been following me all day.
“Dare anything. That is the road.”
Guess I’d better listen:)
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 12, 2021| Leave a Comment »
I wrote a thing, didn’t like it. Wrote another thing, didn’t like that either. Thought for a bit. Went off and made a mini version of this cool anti-gravity tensegriity thing. Came back and wrote a couple of new bits but nothing feels right.
Some days are just like that. Must be time for a quote and a picture.
“So many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
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Posted in Likes, Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, #justaddkittens, cat herding, good people, inspiration, kittens, Thoughts, Writers on December 10, 2021| 1 Comment »
I may have mentioned our adventures in kitten trapping over the past couple of years (short version: hard but rewarding, remote cameras for the win).
Here are two organizations that were great as we tried to keep the neighborhood from being overrun by adorable, yet vulnerable, kittens:
The good people in these groups have done an amazing job even under the stresses of the pandemic, which has increased demand for pets but also restricted a lot of shelters and the vet services they need.
Fortunately, we were able to help our local cat rescue groups get a lot of kittens off the street before winter. Just as an example, take a look at two of the kittens we saved: Comet and Dasher. So cute!
If you’re in the market for an adorable fur friend, check out the adoption pages at these or your local rescue groups. We’re not ready for a new cat just yet but when we are we’ll go through a group like this.
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Posted in Likes, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, #JoniMitchell, climate change, creativity, hope, inspiration, music, Thoughts, Writers on December 9, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Some days you take a break from the avalanche of news and realize you’ve got Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi stuck in your head. The chorus can feel too true to remember that there are reasons to be cheerful and the world is not, in fact, on a one way trip to Ugh Town.
But other days? Like today days? With heartfelt respect to Ms. Mitchell,* you realize that the final lines of the song could be rewritten:
“They saved Paradise,
and took out the parking lot.”
And we’re just the people to do it.
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