Well, ok, maybe it isn't a secret... ;) What I'm proposing here is a challenge which would involve someone supplying a background (fractal, photo, rendering, scientific image, whatever) and everybody playing with it, on it, and through it. This would be a creative challenge... doing something neat and different with a background... and a skills challenge (especially if shadows or colors need to be aligned). I propose that this be a voting challenge (our usual procedure), with the winner selecting a background for the next month. Suppose that the background was a fractal? We could have frost fairies dancing on new ice or an alien ship coming out of hyperspace. If a photo? Some of us have a collection of images which lack something... like a subject. A scientific image? OK, take a molecule of caffeine... sticks and balls in bright colors, but what can we do with it? Lots of things! I used a halo simulator as a background in one image, and it worked nicely. A rendering? Some of us buy these lovely sets, and haven't done anything with them. Take The Courtyard: it could be a modern movie set with cameras and stagehands or a scorched ruin after the dragon settles down for a dinner of roasted peasant. Serena's Island? Mermaids or scuba divers or castaways or pirates.... This would be trickier for the writers, but I think I can come up with limericks for anything, so real writers ought to overcome the challenge, too. This idea should probably run monthly along with the regular Challenge. That gives us two weeks to discuss it. ;) Carolly

There was a contest run here once that was like that, it was fun to take part in, I hope you can run one here Carrolly, if you do, pm me and let me know please.