Hey ya gang,

Gem here with just a brief announcement. I’m sure Edge will follow with something soon, like plans we have for the site in the coming new year.

But for now, we wanted to let you know that with Christmas rapidly approaching that we’re taking a brief hiatus. Edge is off for warmer climes this weekend and I’m celebrating the holidays with my other half and our collective kitties.

Your Cre8tivity will return on January 2^nd, and all of us here wish you a happy, safe and cre8tive holiday season.

An inspiration tag is just a phrase or two meant to give you a jumpstart on your creative expression. So read the tag below and interpret it in a creative way. There are no limitations on the medium. In fact we’d love to see a visual or listen to an audio interpretation. Admittedly, some of the tags will lend themselves more to a written format than any other.

So here it is - Tag! You’re It! Have fun!

S/he was nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs.

The map of my life got a whole lot bigger in 2006. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile, but Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger has a Group Project going this week that made me decide to write a post.

Coloring in the Map

2006 was a journey along a road that bore only a faint resemblance to the territory I was familiar with. There were bits and pieces that I recognized, but most of the year I was spent in uncharted territory. Now I can look back and see how much of the map I’ve colored in.

The job

I knew where I was on the map at the beginning of the year. My path was already beginning to leave the areas I knew though. I finally had a paycheck that was unaffected by holidays and vacations, so I started paying off some old debts. The resulting improvement in my credit score threw me even further into uncharted regions.

The house

I qualified for enough of a loan to buy a house. This was not what I had planned. Halfway through the year, I became a homeowner. Needless to say, there have been many little side trips in my journey since then.

The internet

Jaunting around the internet, as I’m prone to do every so often, led me off in some new directions as well. With a friend, I started this site. And I found blogs and podcasts that gave me some focus, which leads me to the next region

The writing

I’ve always written - but rarely, if ever, finished anything longer than a post. I realized this year that writing was important to me. So I took the plunge and did two things - I signed up for NaNoWriMo and I contacted an author who’s podcast I was listening to. I haven’t finished the book I started for NaNoWriMo, and am still working on it, but during the month of November I wrote more on a single story than I ever have before - and I will finish it by the end of the month. And it lead to my being involved in helping put together a local writing group.

The Map Today

There’s an awful lot of color on my map that wasn’t there at this time last year. What I realized though, is that there’s even more of the map that’s still uncharted. And all the roads I see lead out into that uncharted territory. So here’s to 2007 and the knowledge that I’ll see more color on the map - and to knowing that some of that color will be applied to places I don’t even know exist yet!

–ShadowsEdge

The idea behind Break Away is to let your mind go and see if it will break away from your normal thought patterns.

The word is “Winter”

Here’s how it works:

1. Write the Break Away Word in the center of a paper (or if you’re lucky - a whiteboard).
2. Write/Draw the first thing that comes to mind when you look at the Break Away Word.
3. Write/Draw the next thing that comes to mind.
4. Continue the process for 10 minutes or until nothing new comes to mind

Let your pen or pencil find its own way, don’t try to force any associations into a pattern.

When you’re done, take a look at your paper/whiteboard. Where did you end up? Are there any connections that surprise you?

Here’s this week’s Say What?

“If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can’t be done.”

–Peter Ustinov

We all have grandiose ideas for the next best seller. However big those ideas are sometimes they just need a kick start. Sometimes there’s no great thing lurking in the shadows screaming “Write me!” but instead just a short simple scene that plays in the mind. The idea behind flash fiction is to write something out using only so many words. We frequent 55fiction and even though we haven’t posted there, we enjoy reading the work. If you visit their site you can see that some of the pieces there are nothing but a 55 word stories while others may elaborate on each short piece.

So here’s the challenge: 70 word fiction in a flash. True, that’s only 15 more words than what you see at 55fiction so make those 15 words profound and eye opening. You never know what you might scratch out of your head.

Anyone interested in adding their own work can do so in the comment section. We look forward to seeing what each and every creative mind can come up with. The requirements are simple, all we ask for is a plot in only 70 words that includes the item below, no more no less. And believe me, that’s not as easy as it sounds.

Here’s your holiday challenge…. Tell the story of how the Angel wound up on the top of the Christmas tree using 70 words.

Here’s an exercise to get your thoughts moving. Pick a number (it has to be equal to or greater than 5) and write down something about kids that matches each number in quantity.
If you’d like to see an example, take a look at the Gratitude Countdown.

An inspiration tag is just a phrase or two meant to give you a jumpstart on your creative expression. So read the tag below and interpret it in a creative way. There are no limitations on the medium. In fact we’d love to see a visual or listen to an audio interpretation. Admittedly, some of the tags will lend themselves more to a written format than any other.

So here it is - Tag! You’re It! Have fun!

There is more than one way to skin a cat.

The idea behind Break Away is to let your mind go and see if it will break away from your normal thought patterns.

The word is “Good”

Here’s how it works:

1. Write the Break Away Word in the center of a paper (or if you’re lucky - a whiteboard).
2. Write/Draw the first thing that comes to mind when you look at the Break Away Word.
3. Write/Draw the next thing that comes to mind.
4. Continue the process for 10 minutes or until nothing new comes to mind

Let your pen or pencil find its own way, don’t try to force any associations into a pattern.

When you’re done, take a look at your paper/whiteboard. Where did you end up? Are there any connections that surprise you?

Here’s this week’s Say What?

“Here’s something to think about: How come you never see a headline like ‘Psychic Wins Lottery’?”

–Jay Leno