Playing Dirty

A CREATIVE writer at work.

Now this is the news we've all been waiting to hear!

The University of Minnesota has discovered that if you happen to be writing your next novel about Ping-Pong balls…

DO NOT rid your desk of those paper piles, cat hairs, and banana peels.

Here’s how the study went down in the hallowed halls of the Psychology Department —

One by one, students (a.k.a. guinea pigs sans fur) were taken to a small room and asked to come up with 10 unconventional uses for Ping-Pong balls. For half of them, the room was made to look like the habitat of a neatnik with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. For the other half, the room looked like last week’s leavings from a slob convention.

While the students who worked in the neat room reported just as many Ping-Pong uses as the slob squad, their ideas were sadly not as innovative.

So if you were thinking of hiring a cleaning lord — Save. Your. Cash.

And, Grandma, if you’re listening —

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cleanliness may be next to Godliness…

But clutter and the Creator?

Clearly BFFs.

PROMPT: Do try this at home — head to the messiest part of your house, hand your main character a Ping-Pong ball, and write what happens next.