Welcome to the Saturday installment of Five Minute Friday. No excuses. I just couldn’t muster the inspiration to write for five minutes Friday.

Oh, wait. INSPIRE. That’s this week’s prompt. How (in)appropriate.

But I didn’t want the weekend to fly by without doing my assignment, so here I am on the front end of the assignment (writing) and looking forward to linking with my Five Minute Friday friends at Kate’s place on Facebook at http://www.fiveminutefriday.com . It’s always exciting — and often informative — to see how my fellow FMF friends develop their thoughts in a variety of different genres. If you get a chance, stop by.

I’ve been sharing snippets taken from Five Minute Friday: A Collection of Stories Written in Five Minutes Flat. They are a testament to the value of the exercise. This week, I’ll share some perspective from Kristin who I hope inspires you to check us out … and maybe join in?

“FMF was a foreign concept to me when I first heard about it. Writing for five minutes and NO EDITS?! Crazy town! But what I found as I joined in was that I not only had a reason to write, but there was a community of women [and men] who were doing the same. I loved that, as I would go and read others posts, we all take the same singular word and yet come up with incredibly unique presentations of what that word meant. I attended Allume in 2013 and 2014 and sitting in a circle on the floor of the hotel I wrote furiously that Friday night, surrounded by some of my now closest friends. Five minutes never seemed so short but when we were done and women started sharing their words at the mic, community was solidified. Tears were shed, fears of public speaking were destroyed, laughs were shared and we all left that room a little lighter in our step. It is incredible to me that one word and five minutes could move in such a big way. But it does. I write much less than I used to now, life has a way of doing that to us at times. But I love knowing that when I am ready again there will remain a group of faithful writers gathering together on Thursday night, across the country [and world], ready to take one little word and pen a story, bringing light, hope and joy back int these often dark Internet spaces!”

There you have it. Words of wisdom from Kristin. I hope she moves you maybe, just maybe, to check us out and even give it a whirl yourself. I assure you, you will be welcomed, embraced and enriched.

But now to the task at hand. The timer is set, so it’s time to GO …

This was a tough word for me. I kept trying to think about who inspires me to write. No one. Nothing.

Oh, I have plenty of mentors and supporters. I’ve been given plenty of encouragement over the years, including a healthy dose of constrictive criticism. But to point my finger at one person and say he/she was my inspiration … just didn’t happen.

I can’t even claim divine assistance as my inspiration . Well, sort of. Certainly, God has given me some writing talent [I think] but my most of my words are not divinely inspired.

Then it hit. My inspiration isn’t from a who, it’s from a what [so I guess it is divinely inspired]. You see, I can look at the simply things in life — things that often get overlooked in our everyday lives — and see the beauty and uniqueness worth a word or two. I can see the color in the gray, the brightness in the drab … STOP

… the extraordinary in the ordinary. I’m mesmerized by the birds’ early morning song, the bullfrogs at night, a spectacular sunrise or sunset no man could create, the symphony of a thunderstorm, the rustling wind, the roll of ocean waves, the staccato of women’s heels on a boardwalk, the symmetry of dance, the absolute quiet, the stars as stars in the sky, the doe leading her fawn eating across the river or meadow in the wee hours of the day, the flower/weed pushing through the concrete, the illusions of heat rising from the road, family and friendships — just being together without filters.

That’s what inspires me. What about you?

THOUGHT TO REMEMBER: Good, better, best; never let it rest; until your good is better; and your better is its best.