Long perched upon my living room table is a book gifted to me by an old friend called The War of Art, a play on Sun Tzu’s Art of War—only geared toward the creative process. Glancing through it once again this New Year's Eve, putting it down I resolved to seek more inspiration in my life, which in turn makes me more creative in my own life.

To do that kind of a joke could be considered totally appropriate to some or absolutely unforgivable, depending on the perspective.

Due to a recent death in the family and through a very specific set of circumstances, a peculiar history if you will, several generations of things including furniture, dishes and glassware, books, family photographs, art created and collected by family members, plus handwritten notes, cards, diaries, etc. have accumulated in one house which I find myself compelled to look through.

Mediocrity is the acceptance of doing just enough to get away with it without rigorous interrogation of value. And by placing monetary value over experiential value, we reinforce the idea that success artistically is defined primarily by commerce and popularity.

Long perched upon my living room table is a book gifted to me by an old friend called The War of Art, a play on Sun Tzu’s Art of War—only geared toward the creative process. Glancing through it once again this New Year's Eve, putting it down I resolved to seek more inspiration in my life, which in turn makes me more creative in my own life. “In pursuit of joys untasted,” from Verdi’s La Traviata sums it up nicely.  With this in mind, I thought it might be interesting to ask some of my more creative friends their viewpoint on the subject. Impulsively, phone calls were made and emails were sent to a group of people that make my life richer with their presence—musicians, inventors, photographers, chefs, record producers, authors, filmmakers, scientists and then some. Tasking them to give me a comment/thought/impart wisdom about creativity-their responses are below.

Flash Fiction has its own day. And everybody knows, if a thing has its very own celebratory day, then it might be worth paying attention to, if only for a brief (or extremely brief) time.