Dog Days of Summer

It's really easy to tell that we're running into the tail of summer.  People are scrambling to take their last vacations before school starts up for the kids again.  The number of people participating in on-line chat boards is down, as always happens during the summer months.  But even though the body or your friends might be on vacation, it doesn't mean that your creativity should be also.  So think about how to jump-start your own creativity today.  For instance: 

1 - What music are you listening to in your car?  Why not try a different type of music for a day.  What visions are you getting from this new beat/combination of instruments/vocal style?  Could you work this into a story or put the rhythms into a piece of artwork or craftwork that you have in the back of your mind? 

2 - Walk into a room that is familiar to you.  Close your eyes (if you are already sight impaired - you're already ahead of the rest of us for this exercise).  Moving from direction to direction, describe the wall/area.  Did you catch everything?  Is there anything you would change?  If you could re-do this room in your imagination, what would you change? 

3 - Take your favorite book down from the bookshelf (or upload it into your e-reader).  Usually in any favorite book there are certain passages that resonate with the reader.  Re-read those few passages or sentences.  If it is on your e-reader, you should have those bookmarked.  What...you don't?  Shame on you.  Do it now.  There are reasons for your liking these passages.  Sometimes it's nice to revisit old or new friends in the pages of a book. 

4 - Pick a word.  Orange, dog, wife, mountain....a word.  Go to the image search feature of Google or Bing or your favorite search engine and put that word in.  Look at the variety of images you got back for the word.  Is there anything here that will click into your creativity? 

5 - Make a meal, make a drink, do something with food - LOL.  I took lemonade, added some fresh lime and then some maraschino cherries.  Yellow + green + red - very attractive.  Much happier to concentrate on that then on what the financial markets are doing right now - *sigh*. 

Have a creative day!!!