@Jay Bryant You win on so many levels today!

🏆

Once upon a time (when Chimera still darkened the skies at night) I worked on a play. In that play there was a beauty contest. In the talent section one of the beauties revealed that her talent was that she had no imagination. I felt an immediate connection, a fellow dullard. But neither of us could imagine how to move it to the next level. Oh woe. Oh woe.

Of late my biggest feat of invention was choosing the color (a dark sage green - pretty close to Army Olive Drab) to paint my four new horse watering troughs (that will eventually be used as planters.)

For years I worked among very smart people; I felt that I had no imagination.

By-the-way, did I mention that I created a chocolate cake icing recipe that is so impenetrable that it can be used as tank armor? I think we finally got into the cake through the gentle mediation of a meat clever.

I just saw a fun idea: sending a rubber ducky to your congresscritter and telling them to impeach the quack (RFK, Jr).

bsky.app/profile/cdelawalla.bs…

@stefani banerian and everyone: You CAN increase your creativity. The first big step is just being open to it. The second big step is to embrace the silly. Let those odd ideas out rather than shutting them down the instant they occur. Pretty soon, those ideas engender other ideas, and off you go on the creativity train. Sure, lots (most, in fact) of those ideas will never amount to anything. That's fine. That's how it works.

There are tools for boosting your creativity, too, such as the Creative Whack Pack: usgamesinc.com/creative_whack_…

I hope I don't come across as preachy, but I value creativity a whole bunch, so I promote it when the topic comes up.

Creative Whack Pack® Deck

Roger von Oech’s Creative Whack Pack is a creativity tool designed to "whack" you out of habitual thought patterns and allow you to look at what you’re doing in fresh, new ways.

^{U.S. Games Systems, Inc.}

@Jodi - The rubber ducky thing is great!!

But my Congress Critter is kinda slow on the uptake; he would probably think we wanted to enter into the yearly Rubber Ducky race in Capitola (a town near Santa Cruz.)

With creative writing, I just write. As the late Erick Wujcik (Palladium Games, Phage Press) puts it in his Amber Diceless rulebook, "Trust yourself."

It comes and goes. I've been cranking out song parodies lately, and it often stems from someone saying something that evokes a lyric. I've gone to sleep a few times with a single line in my head, then wake up to write the full parody.

The circus in my mind never sleeps.

I'm not a brilliant person though so most of what comes out isn't novel, an improvement on, or a different interpretation of existing art.

I gave up Tolkien-inspired semicolons 20 years ago (a significant part of my writing style and poetry) because they went out of fashion and I was criticized by people I held (possibly misplaced) respect for.

I'm slowly and tentatively bringing back the semi-colon; the critics can suck eggses, yes they can my precious.

Occasionally a Guitar God will posses my fingers for a few bars and I'll play something that actually might be considered good. I mostly play guitar these days to distract myself from the fascist revolution. So eh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Today was a company meeting. The CEO opened with "it's a nice day today in Toronto..." I was this close to unmuting and asking in front of the whole company "Will you sponsor me and my kid as immigrants?"

I would reflexively say I'm not "creative"—but I can improve on existing things, or find unconventional ways to fix broken things, or make things suitable for unintended tasks.

Tolkien-inspired semicolons

oh that's where Mr. Stranger picked up that habit