> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.raincrossgazette.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Chances Are
- URL: https://www.raincrossgazette.com/chances-are/
- Published: 2026-08-29T12:00:41.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-29T12:00:43.000Z
- Description: A prompt to encourage your practice of creativity this week from Riversider and local author Larry Burns.
- Author: Larry Burns
- Tags: Creative Prompts

Welcome back, you curtain-calling choreographers! [Last week](https://www.raincrossgazette.com/the-big-reveal/) we stood on our mark between concealed and revealed. Our audience may applaud; the scenery might fall over. Will anyone notice we’ve entered from the wrong side of the stage? When a curtain opens, we know something is about to happen. We just don’t always know what.

This week let’s welcome the element of chance onto the stage. My first memorable encounters with chance came from board games. In Monopoly, drawing a Chance card usually brings something advantageous, but it could also bring financial disaster. Will I advance to the nearest railroad, head directly to jail or discover that every property has been reassessed? No different than chance in real life, I cannot predict what’s coming, but I will be ready when it arrives.

Chance sometimes gets confused with giving up control. Welcoming it doesn’t mean handing over the keys and telling fate to drive. It means noticing that accidents, coincidences, unexpected materials and unplanned encounters have always helped nudge us onto paths we might not have selected for ourselves. 

Chance is already an important collaborator in my outdoor assemblage work. Most of those exhibits are made from things I find after I arrive. I may bring an idea, but the location supplies the materials. Weather factors in too. Wind brings in the greatest element of chance, removing or adding things after I thought I was finished. Chance becomes another collaborator. It doesn’t get final approval, but it does get a vote.

I’m less tolerant of chance when I write. I don’t want to pull a random collection of words out of a bag. When I sit down to write, I expect access to all the letters, words and punctuation marks. 

Technology reduces chance by surrounding us with more of what we already like. Social media feeds, recommendation systems and chatbots can narrow the world into a very comfortable hallway. I’ve found that a little intention pairs nicely with chance; getting the recipe just right is a work in progress. 

I recently trained a chatbot to find news I might be in the mood for. That day I was gardening and getting my English classes ready for the Fall term at Riverside City College. It found interesting articles directly related to my activities that day; unprompted it added something about recycling that connected with my artwork. The machine didn’t eliminate chance; it increased my chances of encountering something meaningful to me.

Different creative practices require different amounts of uncertainty. Here are five ways to adjust the setting:

1. **Curated Serendipity:** Choose two things currently occupying your attention—gardening and artificial intelligence, cooking and local history, baseball and birdhouses. Ask a chatbot, a co-worker, or friend to find a connection between them. Spend five minutes with your favorite beverage following wherever that takes you.
2. **Follow a Color:** Notice the first bright color you see after stepping outside. Do your best to remember that color and notice it across your day. Take photos of your finds or write a diary entry to yourself about how it felt to focus on something different for a change.
3. **Let the Location Choose:** Gather three safe, ordinary things already within reach. Don’t select the best three; use the first three you notice. Arrange them into a temporary sculpture that suggests movement, conflict or cooperation. Give it a title before returning everything to its regularly scheduled life.
4. **Abstract Movement:** Make marks on paper for one minute using ink, paint, pencil or anything from the fridge. When a smear, wobble or unintended line appears, stop treating it as a mistake. Make it the most important part of the composition.
5. **Open to Interpretation:** Open a physical book, magazine or newspaper to a random page and point without looking. Look around your location and randomly point at an object. Place the object on display as a work of art and use the random word as its title. See what happens.

Chance is already influencing our lives. Invited or not. it introduces us to new people, places, and things…and occasionally sends us directly to jail without passing Go.

Embracing chance isn’t giving up. It is accepting that our creative lives have more than one author. Perhaps the best creative role we can play today is willing collaborator. This week, leave a little room in your plans for the idea, object or encounter you didn’t know you needed.

*This column was written with help from ChatGPT. I asked it to surprise me, and it helpfully organized the surprise into three bullet points.*