From the same stash of childhood ephemera as the Great Green Dragon, I give you a haiku on the theme of the moon.
O Mistress, come see!
What is this caught in the net
Of the cherry tree?
— Jenny J.
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Posts Tagged ‘writing’
What Is the Moon?
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, haiku, writing on December 26, 2023| 1 Comment »
The Strange Phenomenon That Is Saint Nick
Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, children, Christmas, creativity, science, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 24, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Christmas Eve, when Santa is racing around the world distributing presents, seems like an excellent time to think back to the experience of the holiday as a young child. If Christmas was part of your family tradition, do you remember what it was like to believe in Santa Claus?
I do, and despite the ever-present pressures of reality, that sense of wonder is part of why I write.
Making Sense of Santa, as a Science Reporter and a Parent ‹ Literary Hub
“When I was a kid, did you try to get me to believe in Santa?” I recently asked my parents. My father, a mathematician, scoffed. “Of course not,” he said. “We told you he was a mythological being that represented generosity and good cheer.”
Still, every December, my mother hung stockings above the chimney with care. And every Christmas Eve, she made sure cookies were left on a festively decorated plate, as though she truly believed St. Nick would soon be there.
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This Is the Way
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, inspiration, she should know, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 22, 2023| Leave a Comment »
“My response to anything that happens, good or bad, is to keep making things. Keep making art.”
— Taylor Swift
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Know Your Limits (In a Good Way)
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, art, creativity, fail better, failure, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »
“You need to drop glass on the floor, get the burns, all those things. The real practice is in all the pieces that didn’t make it, the cliched blood, sweat and tears. You can’t know the limits of something unless you’ve failed.”
— Will Shakspeare, artisan glassblower
And you can still make something beautiful along the way.
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What Is It Like?
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, curiosity, Fiction, inspiration, Writers, writing, WritingResearch on December 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »
If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to be someone else, either because you need background for a character or because some days, daydreaming about a different life is all that’s standing between you and a very impolitic email to your boss, this podcast may interest you!
Curious what it would be like to walk in someone else’s (work) shoes? Join New York Times bestselling author Dan Heath as he explores the world of work, one profession at a time, and interviews people who love what they do. What does a couples therapist think when a friend asks for relationship advice? What happens if a welder fails to wear safety glasses? What can get a stadium beer vendor fired? If you’ve ever met someone whose work you were curious about, and you had 100 nosy questions but were too polite to ask … well, this is the show for you.
Today’s episode? What it’s like to be A Professional Santa Claus.
You know you want to know!
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Today, Meet Tomorrow
Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, AI, art, creativity, genre fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 17, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Ken Liu is one of our modern masters of speculative fiction. The first story of his that I read was “The Paper Menagerie,” “the first piece of fiction to win three genre literary awards: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the World Fantasy Award.”
So he’s pretty good.
He’s also been thinking about art, AI and the evolving relationship between them. Here’s his new story:
Future Science Fiction Digest – Good Stories
Clara’s favorite part of the workday is the very beginning.
She likes flipping the switches on the wall right inside the office entrance, all sixteen of them, different colors and laid out in two neat columns, like the console from an old NASA space capsule that she got to sit inside once on a school trip to DC. As she takes a sip of her latte, her right hand running up the wall, click-click-click, flipping one switch after another, she imagines herself turning on rocket engines, initiating a docking maneuver, venting some dangerous alien spores out the airlock.
The story is one of the many interesting pieces in The Digital Aesthete: Human Musings on the Intersection of Art and AI, edited by Alex Shvartsman with an impressive roster of authors.
Today’s software can only imitate art, but what about tomorrow?
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Worlds That Never Were
Posted in Science!, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, inspiration, science, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.
— Carl Sagan
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This Guy!
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, art, creativity, inspiration, music, productivity, Writers, writing on December 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »
I was feeling pretty not terrible about closing in on three years of daily posts here, but this guy! Writing, recording and releasing an album every day? Seriously impressive.
‘Like brushing my teeth’: how Michiru Aoyama writes, records and releases an album every day
For two years, the Kyoto musician has risen at five, watched football, then made an eight-track album of super-deep ambient music – while fitting in a two-hour walk.
I’m still feeling not terrible about my streak, but this gives me an extra dose of inspiration. Win win!
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Today’s Goal
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, creativity, genre fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 7, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Posted in Entertainment, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, bergen, inspiration, Norway, scandinavia, six-word story, Thoughts, writing on December 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »
So there we were, about to turn off the television when Mr Man and I realized that the actor on screen was David Elsendoorn, who played rude Dutch player Jan Maas in Ted Lasso. Upon closer inspection, we realized that the movie was a moderately well disguised promo for the lovely Unesco World Heritage city of Bergen in Norway.
Having just discussed the clever and funny (and sadly not real) movie Dundee from Tourism Australia, we felt that this was an excellent use of a Hallmark-style movie.
A moment later, a shot of the Bergen sign at the city’s airport popped up on screen. By Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, the sign has letters that are 5.5 meters high and weigh 2.5 tons, and is meant to be “existentialist and poetic.” Competition judges apparently had a healthy dose of Scandinavian wit, because the sign reads “Bergen?”
Everyone can put what they want in the question mark, and there are no wrong answers
It certainly gave me ideas, the shortest of which is this six-word story:
Stupid unpredictable teleportation. Welcome to Bergen?
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