by Nancy Casey
Brief and sudden pinpricks of light—glints and glimmers, shimmers and sparks. Write about some of them today.
They can hurt your eyes or cause delight. They might surprise you. Maybe you cause them. Maybe they aren’t quite made of light.
Think about sparkly things while you set up your page. Draw a line at the top where the title will go when you have finished. You can also draw a box or blob that you’ll use for illustration. Drawing and doodling relax your mind and leave a record of the moment on the page. So they are a form of writing, too.
The world is full of things that sparkle and glimmer. Sunlight on soapsuds. The spark that causes the flame on a match or lighter. The surprise flash you see when you hook up jumper cables. What you see when you press your palms (gently!) against your eyelids…
If you like, take yourself on a little tour of your world looking for sparks. It might be especially interesting if you venture out after dark.
Sometimes thoughts or events arrive in our life like bursts of light. Sparks of insight and recognition. Glimmers of hope or understanding. Flashes of anger. Ripples of laughter.
Some sparks flash and then fade. Others start conflagrations that cannot be controlled.
Let your mind float around in possibilities about glints and glimmers, shimmers and sparks. Don’t wait around for a perfect idea. Write down the first one that flashes into your mind and keep going from there, alternating between writing and drawing if that’s something that works for you.
When you get to the bottom of the page, stop. Look back over what you have done. Make small changes if you like. Give your work a title. Put a signature or your initials on it, and write the date, too.
Here is an example of what someone could write.
If you want to write more than a page, get out a clean sheet of paper and start a new one. Try writing one page on this same sparkly topic every day. The results will probably surprise you.
You can share your work by posting it as a comment below. You can type it in, or take a photo of it and upload the image.
Nancy Casey has lived in Latah County for many years. You can find more of her work here. If you would like some help with your writing, contact Nancy or the Latah Recovery Center. In-person Write-for You classes have been suspended for now, but when Covid recedes, they will return.
Latah Recovery Community Center, Inc. 