💜[01/02] the creativity for good friday five

1. ”Inflatables, rainbow crosswalks, flooding snitch lines — creative action was off the charts in 2025” (Rivera Sun for Waging Nonviolence)

After a year of genuinely exhausting headlines, when it seemed like things were constantly getting worse for everyone (except billionaires) and finding ways to feel hopeful seemed impossible, I’m so incredibly grateful for pieces like this that remind us the many, many, many ways people found to fight back this past year.

Articles like this are a reminder of the real magic of creativity. An idea becomes an action, an action becomes an impact, an impact becomes a ripple effect, and that ripple effect inspires a thousand other ideas — and then the process begins again.

Resistance requires imagination, and that makes it an inherently creative act. Once you start looking at it like that, it becomes clear that anyone can resist. Anyone can create. And nothing can stop that.

How did you take creative action this year? Consider: What you made, what you dreamed about, what actions you took, what conversations you had, what inspiration sparked your imagination. How were you part of the response to this collective moment? Where did you find community? What will you do next?

Prompt: Look back at your work from the past year. Go broad — think beyond your completed projects. How were you part of something greater than yourself? Create about it.

2. ”What Gave You Courage in 2025?” (Kelly Hayes on BlueSky)

I’m going to tell you something that I suggest only very, very rarely: Go read the comments. If it helps, here’s a snapshot:

What I love about this post isn’t so much the post itself, or even the comments themselves (the quote posts are also great, if you have even more time) but the fact that in this clusterfuck of a moment, people took the time to respond. They added their voices and their experiences and their sources of strength, and what emerged was a collective resource of hope, resistance, and inspiration.

Because the things that give us strength don’t have to be huge. We just have to take the time to notice them.

What gave you strength this year? Where did you find inspiration, connection, community, hope? What did you witness that made you believe a better future could be possible? What did you do that made you feel like you feel like you were part of something transformative? How did it change you — and how did you create change?

Prompt: Read through the comments on this post, and choose three responses that stand out to you. Consider what made you react to them. Did they spark something inside you? Did they resonate with your own experiences, or make you wish you’d experienced something similar? Do they remind you of something you did for someone else? Create about it.

3. “Writer Resolution 2026: Wield the Weapon That Is You” (Chuck Wendig on his blog, Terrible Minds)

Listen. I have made no secret of my immense hatred of AI. If AI has no haters, I am dead. We know this.

But while Chuck’s piece here starts out talking about AI and the publishing industry and The General State Of The Terrible Vibes, it transitions into something much more important: The reason why human creativity will always triumph over generative AI and technocrats and publishers and capitalism.

And that reason is because every creator is unique, and is powerful in that uniqueness.

Chuck is speaking to writers, but what he’s saying applies to every type of creator, to everyone who channels their imagination in to action and magic and change. When we create, when we put in the work to create, we’re doing something that no machine can imitate, that no executive can control. It’s fighting back against a narrative that says your value is in the capital you create, the labor you provide for the powerful. It’s saying, I believe I can make something new. And that is unstoppable.

What is your weirdness? What makes your work, your perspective, your voice, unique? How have you wielded that uniqueness in this moment, and how do you plan to bring it to the forefront in the year to come?

Prompt: Consider the project, process, or action you’re most proud of from the past year. What made it special? Why are you proud of it? What are you inspired to do next? Create about it.

4. “Six poems to start the new year” (Nicole Cardoza for Reimagined, formerly Anti-Racism Daily)

You didn’t think we’d have the first Friday Five newsletter of a new year without at least some poetry, did you?

Cardoza is a brilliant writer, and this collection of poetry — which includes offerings from Naomi Shihab Nye, Lucille Clifton, Kate Baer, June Jordan, Carrie Williams Clifford, and Bryan Obinna Joseph Okwesili — spans the gauntlet of “poems to start a new year” themes, from reflection to inspiration to goal-setting to new-year wonder and everything in between. I don’t think I could capture them any better than Cardoza herself, but I will re-share one of her selections here, because it’s stayed with me since I read it:

Here’s Cardoza’s commentary:

As someone who has been actively suicidal this year, who doesn’t expect that to change in 2026, I love this way of looking at the new year — not as a vast stretch of looming time, but as something tiny, fresh, ready to be shaped into whatever we make it. Because this time is what we make it, what we make of it. Whether we make resolutions or take things one second, one step, one breath at a time.

I’m here. You’re here. We’re here, together. We can make so much magic with that.

How do you think of the turning of the years? Do you approach this time with anticipation? With anxiety? Is it a season of inspiration and possibility and potential, or of overwhelming uncertainty? Has that changed for you over time, or is it constant? What does that feel like? What does it make you want to create?

Prompt: Look back at this time last year. Who were you? What were you excited about? What were you dreading? What goals did you set for yourself? What felt inspiring? What about your past self inspires you now — and who do you want to be in the year to come? Create about it.

5. The Three Potatoes Story (John Darnielle on BlueSky, collected on the Dubbatrubba blog)

So, show of hands: Who’s been listening to “This Year” by the Mountain Goats every year since (checks notes) 2005?

I genuinely love this song, and I love it even more because of the way the band talks about it. The lead singer, John Darnielle, has been putting out year-end threads for years, including this one posted on BlueSky on Wednesday night:

(For alt text, check out this post.)

But Darnielle also put out another thread back in 2021, and I think about it all the time. It’s a story about potatoes. I couldn’t find alt text, so I’m transcribing below in its entirety:

Putting aside the fact that potatoes are God’s Perfect Food and any moment of remembering that we have potatoes should be celebrated, the point Darnielle is making is that these flashes of amazement, of hell yes, I have three potatoes or hell yes, I have a delicious cup of coffee or hell yes, it smells like rain or hell yes, the tulips are coming up again or hell yes, my dog gives the best snuggles on the planet, are worth not just noticing, but treasuring. These are the moments that remind us why we’re here. Why all of this — the fear, the pain, the frustration, the struggles, the action, the fighting back — is worth it.

Because there are potatoes. There is coffee. There is rain. There are flowers and dogs and snow days and laughter and embraces and tenderness and delights. Hell yes. Hell yes. Hell yes.

What are your potatoes? By which I mean: What are the things in your life that, when you notice them, strike you with amazement, with wonder, with delight and pride and gratitude? What are the things that give you those hell yes moments, that don’t just make you stop and take notice but ground you, bringing you away from the Big Picture to focus instead on the small, wondrous world around us?

Prompt: When was the last time you had one of those Noticing moments? What inspired it? How did it feel? What did you do with that feeling? Create about it.