Go Ahead, Aim For the Stars

During last month's A-to-Z Challenge, I highlighted a number of authors that have inspired me over the years. Many of these authors broke new ground, tried new things and were often met with lukewarm receptions.

Edgar Rice Burroughs began writing about John Carter traveling to Mars in 1912. He described large flying ships, planetary atmospheric processing plants and Tharks, the six-limbed and not so little green Martians. When was he inducted into the EMP Museum's Science Fiction Hall of Fame? 2003. Talk about patience!

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And let us not forget the great Jules Gabriel Verne. In the 1860s & 1870s he was taking readers 20,000 leagues under the sea, around the world in eighty days, to the moon and even to the earth's very center. Verne had to wait until 1999 for his induction to the Hall of Fame. He was often perceived as a children's or (gasp!) genre author.

Isaac Asimov's robots with positronic brains showed up in his short stories as early as 1939. (Who knew Lt. Commander Data was so dated?) They appeared in his novels by the 1950s. Keep in mind that we didn't even have pocket calculators until the 1970s.

In the 1930s and 1940s we had C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and the rest of the Inklings discussing literature and creating hobbits, ringwraiths and vistas like Narnia, among so much more.

These writers were visionaries. They were in many ways ahead of their time. Much of what they accomplished wasn't always appreciated until years later. And they were but a few who dared to write what none had written before.

The take-away? Possibilities are limitless. Let yourself dream and break new ground.

Go ahead, aim for the stars!