The Creativity Guild: Happy New Years Edition!

A few small things to help jumpstart your creative brain in 2025!

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Happy New Year, friends!

We kind of loathe New Year's resolutions around here. We’re never going to go to the gym every day, so why even pretend?

But we do love finding small ways that spark that feeling of creativity in us. Things that, as we enter into this new year, can help us feel more alive. So, with that in mind, here are a few small things that have inspired us and might just inspire something in you too.

(There are no affiliate links in here. These are real recommendations! 😜)

A Print at Home “How to Start an Art Habit” Zine!

A few years ago

Malaka Gharib

wrote a terrific article for NPR on How making Art Helps Your Brain, and included in that article is the nifty-ist “print-at-home” zine called “How to Start An Art Habit”. It’s an amazing little resource that now lives printed and folded on Geoff’s bookshelf and has proven to be a great bit of inspiration exactly at the times he needs it. You can print it out her zine here, and find folding directions here.

The Moth Storytelling Game

Steve got this gift over the holidays and it’s a fun and interactive group creative experience from the team that produces the hit storytelling podcast and live event series, The Moth. There are multiple ways to play this card/prompt based game, but the two he’s most enjoyed most are All In, where a card is pulled from the deck and everyone at the table has to share a story based on the theme and prompts and Getting to Know You, where each player gets a card and shares a story based on their card’s theme and prompts.

Do one of Lynda Barry’s Writing the Unthinkable Exercises

A decade and change ago Geoff took a week-long writing course with Lynda Barry that changed the way he thinks about creativity. Lynda taught the class to write in a way that was about the experience of writing rather than the quality of the finished work. She’s put some of the exercises she teaches in the class online, and if you’ve never done one it’s definitely worth giving it a try. This video is a great place to start.

Do Something That Matters Journal

Michael Bungay Stanier (MBS for short) is the author of several best-selling books, including The Coaching Habit, which has sold over a million copies. His passion is helping people unlock greatness in themselves and others, and this month, he’s debuting a new journal to help you achieve something that matters in your life. It’s an 18-week journal comprised of 3 6-week cycles and it’s packed with weekly and daily prompts, as well as smart questions to reflect upon. The whole thing is packaged beautifully and I’m very excited to dig into some big new creative projects with the help of this journal.

The Link In Bio Newsletter

Rachel Karten

writes one of Steve’s favourite newsletters, Link In Bio. She is not only a brilliant observer and curator of internet culture and social media, but she also conducts smart interviews with creative social media managers who are breaking the mould and doing things differently. Learning a lot while being entertained is an increasingly rare treat - thank you, Rachel!

Buying and Playing Tiny Instruments

We love musical instruments, but are most certainly masters of none. But that doesn’t stop us from wanting more and more music in our life. About a decade ago, after collecting loose change for a couple of years, Geoff managed to save up enough to buy an electronic piano. When he went to the store to look at his choices what he remembers most were the words the salesperson said to him. With a look of wide eyed excitement she told him “It’s always exciting when you get to bring a new musical instrument into your home!” She was so right.

These days he’s switched to buying smaller instruments. He bought a Snoopy jaw harp earlier this year which he can barely play, but whenever he does manage to get a satisfying twang out of it there is nothing more hilarious. He also has a kazoo that he loves as well. There is really no skill to the kazoo whatsoever, but that doesn’t stop him from kazooing to his heart's delight. Browsing a music store for instruments designed for children has become one of his favourite pastimes. Highly recommended!

Wishing you all an inspiring and funky new year!

Geoff & Steve