Your September Creativity Mini-Challenge + an Exclusive, Author-Read Excerpt
A quick, 5-minute creative hit to kick off your weekend
Hello, Protagonists!
It’s a common myth that creativity has to be a huge undertaking. I actually believe we can spark it with just small moments, and anyone can do it, not just professional artists.
Also, these little bursts of creativity can lead to larger inspiration or simply bring a smile. Both are wonderful and enough in their own ways.
So here is your Creativity Mini-Challenge for this month.
It’s based on “Anything You Want,” an imaginary artist space I invented in my latest novel, One Year Ago in Spain.
This challenge will only take you five minutes!
Read the passage below about the artist space in the middle of the forest.
Imagine—What would you create at “Anything You Want” if you and your friends could visit? Tell yourself a super short story or doodle something about it.
Share your little reverie in the Comments (if you’d like)
REMEMBER—This is supposed to be whimsically rough! It’s not about perfection. It’s five minutes to dream—just for you. Have fun!
🌳 🎨“Anything You Want” - an imaginary artist space
For context, Matías is a Spanish painter and visiting professor in New York.
Claire is an uptight lawyer who is not used to improvising, but dating Matías is teaching her to loosen up.
This author-read excerpt is available exclusively on CREATIVE. INSPIRED. HAPPY!
Excerpt from One Year Ago in Spain:
They left the city and drove the windy roads out into the forests. Matías checked the address on his phone one more time and asked Claire to pull over in a small patch of dirt.
“Where are we?” she asked as they got out and he led them toward the trees, their red and gold leaves rippling in the breeze.
Matías pointed to a painted wooden sign: Welcome to Anything You Want.
“A professor in my department inherited acres and acres out here,” he said. “But instead of building on it, he decided to make it an art collaboration. Any artist is welcome to come onto his land, anytime, to create. The only restriction is you can’t harm the plants or wildlife. I’ve been meaning to come out here but hadn’t had the chance.”
They found a narrow, worn footpath from the dirt pullout that led deeper into the property.
“So this place is called Anything You Want? What does that mean?” Claire asked as they walked through the thicket of trees—some with delicate, pale orange leaves, and others broad, in crimson hues.
“Literally anything you want to make here, you can,” Matías said. “Like that.”
He gestured into the woods to the left. There, bristly square doormats made of coconut fibers had been dyed black and something close to white, and they were laid up and down the hilly ground like an uneven chess board. Three- to six-foot-tall chess pieces made of copper wire stood on some of the squares—stumpy pawns, regal knights on horseback, bishops with hollow bodies except a solid cross at the heart.
“Oh my gosh, look!” Claire laughed, pointing at a wire figure behind a particularly stout tree trunk. “There’s the king!”
Matías laughed, too. Because the king was cowering behind the tree, only his crowned head sticking out, and just a few yards away from him, a queen stood on her coir doormat square, her wire body mounted on a pole so she spun around and around in circles, as if searching for him.
“Checkmate,” Matías said.
“Definitely.” Claire grinned and linked her arm through his as they continued down the path.
They passed a long wooden shed with a sign over the doorway that read: Tools of Imagination.
There was a dragon made entirely of bicycle gears, suspended on a zip line in the canopy above. A single platform with a glass-covered plate—inside was a marble apple, waiting for Snow White.
There were little fairy houses nestled in fields of wildflowers, and colorful glass wind chimes in the tree branches. A gold statue of Aslan the lion. A topiary of a dancing couple. A fallen, lightning-struck trunk carved into a totem pole in repose.
When they came upon a low stone bridge over a creek that had dried up, Matías’s chest swelled in the same way as when inspiration struck him for a new painting.
“There,” he said.
“There what?” Claire looked at the bridge and all around it.
“Stay right here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He ran through the woods, along the twists and turns of the various dirt paths, until he found the wooden shed with the Tools of Imagination. The door was unlocked, and inside, Matías found what he’d been hoping for—paint and brushes and tarps—as well as all sorts of art supplies he didn’t need now but might use another day.
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I would look for the fairies among those wild flowers, they like to hide, and create a little hidden spot for them in the nooks & crannies of tree trunks nearby, just like I did as a child. I would love to photograph that spot if it didn't intimidate them, and then I'd hang the photo next to my writing nook at home. 🧚♀️
I'd love to create a "nurture garden", where flowers have branches or their leaves stretch into arms, pluck seeds from themselves and plant them in bare spots next to them. Same with tomatoes, peppers and snap peas. Large sweet potato leaves will move to where plants need some extra shade (because they know some veggies can't grow with too much sun), vines will grab watering cans to stave off the flower's thirst, and sing songs to nearby humans when veggies/fruits are ready to be picked.