I've been going to a writers group here in my local community. There are six of us "regulars" now which is great considering this is a very small town. We've been writing mainly about our town, but may be branching out as the months go by.

We usually create a list of prompts, then choose one at random each week. Recently the prompt was "Rumors about our small town" . . . . and as it turned out we decided to write about that at home. Sometimes we get so busy talking at our meetings we don't get around to writing!

My inspiration was to write a flash fiction story about "green aliens". Rather than write about a real rumor going around town, I wanted an outrageous rumor so I could show how inaccurate they can be. It was a lot of fun.

This story and the rest of our articles and poetry will be in an anthology... not sure when that will be published but when it is, I'll let everyone know.

Will the watchword of the future be 'creativity'?

We live in the Age of Information now... but people have to DO something with all that information, and I believe the next logical step is creativity. Already we've seen huge leaps in the creative responses of humankind, thanks in part to the Internet, but it started long before this. Way back in the mid-1800s there were amazing inventions that led to the world we've got today.

My spirituality rests in creativity. It's the expression I have that responds to the beautiful universe.

People who struggle for survival have little energy leftover for creative pursuits. Some manage anyhow, snatching what few moments they can find to be the artists they truly are. In some, the art is so strong it cannot be hidden. In others, art is a faraway aspiration, perhaps something given up so long before, it can no longer be remembered.

Most of our current educational systems stress information without awarding bouts of creativity. Creative thought is considered dangerous by many educators; they wanted factory workers, not innovators. Yet we all have creative urgings just like we all have that seed of spirit, and in fact, creative alchemy is the blossoming of that seed.

I would like to see a day when everyone is trained in creativity from early childhood, just as they're trained in math and reading. I would like for children to know they are intrinsically creative, each in a unique way, and that nobody is left out of this great blessing.

Last night I watched two horse movies, both from Australia. The first, The Silver Stallion (also called The Silver Brumby) had beautiful cinematography, fantastic horses, and a weak, slow-moving plot. I know the Silver Brumby series of books is very popular in Australia... not well-known here in the USA. The horses are worth watching... they were incredibly beautiful creamy-silver Palominos along with a lot of other horses whose breeds I wasn't familiar with. All Brumbys are wild horses - that's what they call them in Australia.

The second movie was another Australian horse movie, and much livelier.. The Man From Snowy River. The plot includes a young man's journey into adulthood, a romance, and lots of gorgeous horses!

The Silver Stallion had two story lines. One was of the author of the Silver Brumby series of books writing her first story, and reading it to her young daughter. The other story line was the fictional life of a beautiful young stallion, Thowra. As the movie progresses the young daughter has a hard time discerning reality from the fiction. Though the plot was weak and slow-moving, the movie is extremely popular - especially with fans of the Silver Brumby series of books.

Though I loved watching the gorgeous Thowra and his horse-associates, I had to laugh at some of the fight scenes. They trained these beautiful horses to pretend to fight with each other. It was kind of cute.

The Man From Snowy River had human characters you could really care about. A young man's father is killed, a girl's father won't let her be the outdoorsy horsewoman she really wants to be. You know they have to fall in love, and they do. Great movie!