Earth joy, moon joy, movie joy

Back in mid-April, I was all gung-ho to write about two things:

• The Artmis II moon fly-by mission, which had just completed, and
• The movie Project Hail Mary, which had also been released earlier this year

Both of these elements — the moon mission and the movie — and the high emotions that they engendered in just about everyone made me think that we all like stories of difficult problems being solved by competent people working together (even if, as was in the case of Project Hail Mary, one of the people is an alien). Basically, these two things were the same story and contained the same elements of competent people from different backgrounds working together to make things happen.

Moon joy.

Earth joy.

Amaze amaze amaze.

With the world being overrun by the least competent people, we need stories like these to remind us that problems can be solved, that there are competent people out there working on them, and that we can work together. I like these stories.

Here’s the Artemis II mission patch used as they were approaching the moon:

And here’s the Artemis II mission patch, reversed, use as they were approaching Earth.

And here’s the movie poster for Project Hail Mary:

I still get shivers when I think about these stories. There’s just so much hope and competence and joy in each of them.

Just the other day NASA announced the crew of Artemis III, and there was a small ceremony which involved the crew of Artemis II passing on the baton of moon joy.

As one meme on Facebook put it, it turns out I wasn’t bored of space travel, I was just bored of it being done exclusively by rich douchebags for their own vanity.

And on to something else

I’ve been in a writing slump ever since I finished my 2025 Commitment in December. I spent a lot of time fussing with the outline of Witness to the Scourge, researching cultural legends and fables and mythology and fairy tales, outlining and sketching out characters, and I realized… I never really got into it. I couldn’t jibe with the characters. I had no idea what motivated them, who they were, that sort of thing. So I decided to shelve it for now. I may pick it up again at some point in the future, I may not. Who knows? I don’t.

So instead, I’m picking up my pirate novel again. I had decided way back in 2023 that I was going to shelve this one, because I was trying to make my pirates historically accurate, and what I was learning about the Caribbean pirates of the 1720s was not in line with what I wanted to do. But I have a new direction, so The X of Doom is now in my sights. I’m all inspired all over again. I just need to write it.

On another note, a couple of weeks ago I took a class from Cat Rambo about negativity and how to overcome it. One of the exercises in the class was to imagine the inner critic/bully that keeps you from writing. I imagined mine as an evil mutagenic spirit, since those things show up in my nightmares occasionally, and are always disturbing. The next exercise was to come up with an eviction notice for that inner critic/bully. Having just finished reading My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Henrix (another novel I highly recommend, though not as highly as Project Hail Mary), I decided I was going to write not an eviction notice, but an exorcism. So here’s what I came up with:

All you spirits of despair and doom, BEGONE! You spirit of imposter syndome, BEGONE! The power of Fizziwinker compels you! The power of Doctor Nefario compels you! The power of the lovelorn telepathic giant squid compels you! BEGONE!

Well, I think it’s pretty spiffy. Fizziwinker was a private eye I wrote a bunch of stories about when I was a teenager (was Fizziwinker his first name? Last? I never figured that out). Doctor Nefario was the villain in a novel I wrote in 2005 called Fred Again (eventually renamed The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster). And the lovelorn telepathic giant squid was a character in Code Monkey, a novel I wrote a few years ago. Both Fred Again and Code Monkey went over very well with friends and family, and my Fizziwinker stories were popular with my family and friends when I was in high school.

So basically, I am summoning up characters that have been popular in stories I’ve written and calling on them to vanquish self-doubt and imposter syndrome. I know it’s silly and weird, but you know what? It works for me.

That’s it! Stay safe, stay punk, stay kind, and keep looking to the stars.