Tag: dailyprompt

Chaos

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

Is a little chaos actually good for us?

Constant changes are part of life. Changes come with a little bit of chaos.

Not much changes on Mars and Mars isn’t a very habitable place.

Better sleep

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment
Daily writing prompt
What do you do to improve your sleep?
View all responses

I stopped sleeping well in my mid to late 30s. I used alcohol to end the day, coffee to start it, and didn’t sleep much in total. Yet I still woke up at night anyway. The bad sleep eventually contributed to significant health issues.

Here’s what helped me turn things around:

  • No beer. The first 3-4 days without beer are awful but then it’s like no longer carrying a backpack full of bricks. Mornings are far more productive
  • No coffee. I’m convinced stopping coffee helped, but can’t evaluate by how much. Probably less important than beer, I’d place it second most important as I can physically sense the caffeine when I have too much
  • I count my steps and have daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Feeling physically tired helps me but steps are also like a form of meditation, they help process information, get my thoughts in order, and I think reduce stress
  • I dedicate time to reading before bed, as it makes me sleepy
  • Go to bed early. I found a saying somewhere and blogged about it but can’t find the source now. It goes roughly as follows:

If it’s not worth doing first thing in the morning, it’s not worth doing last thing in the evening

The reason for going to bed late most nights was just doing random things online, like doomscrolling or watching TV shows. Not worth it, according to the rule above.

This resulted in better sleep for me on average, and I think I clock 7+ hours most nights.

Palpatine’s Successor

~ Veselin ~ 9 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Emperor Palpatine has announced open elections for a new Emperor — and he’s nominated Darth Vader. You get to nominate one challenger.
View all responses

I take the blame (or pride) for this writing prompt. I really wanted some more goofy ones to go out, and seeing one of the worst offenders in the wild forces me to respond.

Here’s the line of thought I have.

  • It can’t be a Jedi. Palpatine and Luke are opposite forces that equalize, you can’t replace one with the other
  • It needs to be either neutral or another sith
  • A successful candidate should be able to defeat Vader in a 1-1 combat
  • A successful candidate can’t be from another universe. In that case, they’d either be too strong and won’t need elections, or will fail for not knowing the game
  • They can’t be a robot

So here are my nominees:

Mitth’raw’nuruodo – just because I recently read a book about him and picked two more this morning. A natural leader, organized, neutral, able to pull the strings from behind

Jabba the Hutt – an underground mastermind with deep connections to both sides

Jar Jar Brinks – a TikTok sensation and a martial arts expert, capable of winning against Vader by luck

My first impactful books

~ Veselin ~ 9 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What’s the first book you ever finished and still remember to this day?
View all responses

The first was a comic from a series called Daga (Rainbow). My first Daga was number 14, and I don’t think I was able to read when I got it. The Daga series featured stories from popular books, including the entire Hobbit, from start to finish. There were also lots of space stories, things you can try to draw yourself.

Then came children’s books, like Pinocchio, Alice, Pippi, and so on. Then came pirates, adventure, the Wild West, Dumas, and Jules Verne. By the age of 10, I was already in the hundreds of books finished, but there was no Goodreads, and it’s difficult to say for sure. My mom would frequently bring me fresh books from the library.

There were several milestone books that had a big impact on me:

  • Pippi Longstocking – for its unlimited re-readability and for showing true friendship.
  • Winnetou – it’s difficult to say what I saw in this one. I guess it was a certain moral superiority in the main characters that looked appealing at the time.
  • The Three Musketeers – the first half is just so satisfying, with imperfect characters following their paths and accepting the present.
  • The Lord of the Rings – for the depth of its world-building.
  • Foundation – for introducing me to the world of truly great science fiction.

Now that I look to my book reviews, I still read Fantasy and Sci-Fi, occasional adventure/pirates, and some of the folks who published Daga keep impacting the gamebook genre to this day. Lost interest to the Wild West.

What if…

~ Veselin ~ 14 Comments
Daily writing prompt
If you had an unlimited budget for 24 hours, what would you do?
View all responses

Given that:

I’d try to build a vault full of gold and enjoy it for a bit, think Uncle Scrooge.

This little fellow doesn’t know the concept of money or budgeting, and appeared to be happy.