Your October Creativity Mini-Challenge + New, Exclusive Short Story by Me!
+ A quick, 5-minute creative hit to kick off your weekend
Hello, Protagonists! In this post, you’ll find:
🤓 What I’m Reading This Week
🎉 5-minute Creativity Mini-Challenge
✍🏼 A new short story by me (published exclusively here on CREATIVE. INSPIRED. HAPPY)
🤓 What I’m Reading This Week
All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker - this is a heavy book so you have to be in the right headspace for it (it’s about a serial killer who abducts teenagers in a small, impoverished town), but Whitaker writes in that slower, literary-meets-commercial pace that seems to be rarer these days (because of people’s shortened attention spans), and I’m enjoying the different rhythm of this novel. His other novel, We Begin at the End, was painfully beautiful, so I was eager to read his new one.
“Chloe Gong’s Guide to an Author’s (Extremely) Online Life” - (article, Elle Magazine) - I’ve known Chloe for a few years now (we did an event together in San Francisco), and this was a really interesting interview about how she began as a BookTok star but is now shedding that label while still being very accessible on social media.
“Why the Tomato was Feared in Europe for More Than 200 Years” - I read a lot of stuff across lots of topics, so sometimes you’ll get articles from me like this, haha. But hey, you never know what’s going to spark your next book idea, right?
🎉 Your October Creativity Mini-Challenge
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 a picture I took and will only take you five minutes. (Below, you’ll find my take on it, although I admit time gets away from me once I get going.)
Look at the photo of the wooden troll below (alt text available for accessibility).
Tell yourself a super short story or doodle something about it.
(optional) Share what you came up with in the Comments below!
REMEMBER—This is supposed to be whimsically rough! It’s not about perfection. It’s five minutes to dream—just for you. Have fun!
CREATIVE.INSPIRED.HAPPY is a warm, vibrant community of thousands who believe that EVERYONE can spark creativity and build an inspired, happier life.
✍🏼 My whimsically rough, super short story
(written on my phone while at the salon, getting my roots done):
Bravery had never been Toby’s strong suit. As a boy, he was the one who stood at the top of the McDonald’s slide and just watched as the other kids pushed him aside and whooshed down, then climbed the stairs and did it again and again. But Toby lacked whatever gene allowed you to be cavalier; he felt better if he could observe and figure out how the slide worked. Even so young, he needed tight control of the unpredictable world around him.
As a teenager, he refused to learn to drive, much to his parents’ chagrin, for that made them his eternal chauffeurs. “What are you going to do in college, or as an adult?” his dad asked. “I’m not driving you around once you turn eighteen.”
It was fine, though. Toby chose a college in a little town in the Pacific Northwest where the bus system was excellent, and besides, everything was within walking distance, if you were willing to hoof it for an hour to reach your destination. Toby was.
After he graduated, he took a job at the local bookstore and stayed in that little town. He knew how everything worked there. It was better for him this way.
Then, on his thirtieth birthday when Toby went in to his usual cafe to get his usual morning chai, there was a new barista. She winked, like she knew all about him before he’d even opened his mouth.
“I’ve got just the drink for you,” she said, packing espresso grounds into the machine.
“But I don’t drink coffee,” Toby said.
She just grinned at him like he had no idea what he needed. When she slid the cup over the counter to him a few minutes later, she refused payment and gave him a napkin with an address written on it in Sharpie. “6pm tonight,” she said.
Toby laughed. This was not the way he operated. There was no way he was showing up at a strange address, invited by a barista he’d never met before.
The coffee, though, was incredible. It was milky and spiced—close enough to chai that he wasn’t shocked by its flavor—yet bold in a way that made his heart go half a beat faster. Even after the coffee was long drunk, Toby could still taste the ghost of it on his tongue.
At a quarter to six, after he’d clocked out of his shift at the bookstore, he reached into his pocket and found the crumpled napkin. The address was only a fifteen minute walk… almost as if it had been planned that way.
The memory of the morning’s coffee flickered. It felt, perhaps, like courage.
Toby mapped the napkin’s address.
At 6pm on the dot, he arrived.
It was an artist warehouse, and outside was a massive sculpture troll twenty feet tall, made from reclaimed wood planks and roof shingles. Its wide eyes were kind, without malice, and its wide mouth was set in a nonjudgmental smile. Above the troll, a painted sign proclaimed: “The World is in Our Hands.”
The barista poked her head out from the warehouse. “Ah, I see you’ve met Bravery,” she said, waving her hand toward the wooden troll. “He’s yours. Whenever you need him, just whisper his name, and he’ll be there. Invisible, but right by your side.”
Toby frowned. He had no idea what she meant. The woman disappeared into the warehouse. When he went to follow her inside to ask more questions, he found nobody there.
The next morning, that barista wasn’t at the cafe. Instead, it was the usual guy, and he was already preparing Toby’s usual chai.
But Toby wanted to try something new.
“Bravery,” he whispered, and the wooden troll, looming large, appeared by his side.
Maybe no one could see it. But to Toby, knowing Bravery was there was enough to prod him to say, “Actually, I’d like a coffee today. Something different. Surprise me.”
The usual barista blinked at him, startled for a second. “You sure, Toby? You’ve been drinking the same thing for over ten years.”
Toby glanced over at Bravery. Then he smiled. “I’m sure.”
A year later:
Toby is driving down Highway I-5 in a convertible, top down, singing at the top of his lungs. He’s a sales rep now for a major publisher, visiting bookstores across the western United States to showcase each season’s new books.
And as always, Bravery sits in the passenger seat, quiet, but forever there whenever Toby needs him.
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Where is this photo from?
If you’re curious, I took this photo in Freetown Christiania, an enclave of artists in Copenhagen, Denmark, during my trip there in September of this year.
Morris liked slow. Unfortunately, he lived in a fast world. His mama rushed to make breakfast, to dress his brothers and sisters, she rushed to work at the flower store. Papa rushed to his workshop, rushed to clean their house, rushed to meet his artist's club. His three older brothers and two younger sisters rushed all day, from the momenr their eyes opened to the moment their heads fell on their pillows at night. They played fast games and talked fast and thought fast. But Morris moved slow. He took his time, observed, waited, and liked to think, think, think.
"Come on, Morris!"
"Hurry up, Morris!"
"Pick up the pace, Morris!"
What is a pace and why should he pick it up? Morris felt like it was hard to be himself.
One day, Morris took a long, slow walk in the woods. He discovered a tree he'd never met, and sat under the cool, green leaves. He filled his lungs with air, and let out a contented sigh. He sat, and sat, and sat. And he learned that the woods let him be slow.
He smiled.
And made friends with the birds...
the butterflies...
the squirrels and chipmunks...
the dragonflies.
He smiled, content, and slow, and at home.
This looks like a Thomas Dambo troll! There’s six of them up here in the PNW and they are so magical ✨