Author: latahrecoverycenter

by Nancy Casey

We make plans. We have expectations. Life happens, and things don’t pan out the way we thought they would. Because they turned out even better. Or some good thing we couldn’t have imagined occurred. Pleasant surprises. Whoopee! Today, write about one or more of them that you have experienced in your life.

Think about unexpected good things that have fallen into your lap as you set up your page. Draw a line across the top where your title will go. You can also draw a box or blob that you’ll use for illustration.

Have you ever dreaded an event or an encounter only to have it turn into a delightful experience? How about starting a task that you knew would be difficult, if not impossible, and then discovering that it was easy, a piece of cake? What about losing something very important only to have it turn up in the very first place you look?

If you are a bit forgetful, you can pleasantly surprise yourself in hilarious ways. Have you ever completed a task, forgot you did it, then experienced the surprise of having it already done when you set out to do it?

Strangers, friends, and loved ones can surprise us unexpectedly with kindness. Have you ever come up short in a check-out line and had the stranger behind you slap a couple dollars on the counter? Have you ever received a card, a gift, or a message from someone for no reason other than that they are glad that you exist? When have you received unexpected but very useful help?

Consider all those different moments when you saw the future as difficult or glum, and then—through no fault or effort of your own—something happy or heart-warming occurred.

Begin writing about the first pleasant surprise that comes to your mind. If there is still room on the page, write about another one. And another one, if it will fit. Until the page is full.

If nothing comes to mind at first, begin by scribbling or drawing. That can help your mind relax so you can think more clearly. When the memory of some pleasant surprise does pop into your awareness, write about it and see where it takes you. One idea usually leads to another one. If your ideas don’t flow easily, go back to doodling and wait patiently for them to come.

When you feel like you’ve written enough, stop. If there’s still room on the page, fill it with drawing or decoration.

When the page is completely full, look it over carefully and make small changes if you like. When a title idea floats to the surface of your mind, write it at the top of the page.

Write the date on the page too, along with a signature or your initials.

Here is an example of what someone could write.

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.

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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.

by Nancy Casey

Originally, milestones were rocks alongside the road. Stones that marked the miles. They didn’t tend to be flashy, although they could be in flashy places. On a long journey, you would pass a lot of them.

Today, when we say “milestone” we are talking about reference points in our lives.

Make a list of some of the milestones you have passed so for on the journey of your life.

Major life events make milestones, of course: births, deaths, marriages, graduations, moving to a new place, getting a new job. Anything you start. Anything that comes to an end.

Not every milestone has a big story attached to it. Some milestones are simply markers in your life history that are personal. When you acquired a certain possession can be a milestone—a car, a pair of shoes, a dinner plate, a houseplant. The moments when people or pets came into your life can function as milestones, too. If you can attach a “before” and an “after” to it, it’s a milestone.

Events are often milestones. An accident, a test, a vacation, a trip downtown… It depends on what happened and how and why you remember it.

Milestones also exist in our minds. Learning new facts and skills. Understanding a conflict in a new way. A realization that changes your attitude.

Think about the milestones of your experience—big and small—as you set up your page. Draw a line at the top where your title will go. Write the letters of the alphabet, A-Z, down the left-hand side of the page.

As milestones occur to you, write something about them next to a letter that stands for a word in your description. You’re only going to have one line to describe your milestone. That’s not much room. Write a few words, maybe a sentence, with just enough information that you could recall what you were thinking of if you read it again in a week or a year.

For example, if you remember a time you got a piece of news about Charlie, and also that you happened to be wearing a red shirt, you could write something like any of these:

• Red shirt that I was wearing when I heard about Charlie.
• Shirt, red. The one I was wearing when I found out that Charlie…
• Wearing a red shirt and learning that Charlie…
• Charlie, and the day I found out that…

Depending on who Charlie is and what happened, there would be other words whose first letters you could borrow to put that milestone on your list.

If you can’t decide what to write, begin by scribbling or drawing around the margines. That can help your mind relax so you can think more clearly. When an idea for something to write pops into your mind, find a letter of the alphabet where it will fit and write it down. Don’t be too fussy about how you start. One idea usually leads to another one.

When you have a milestone for every letter, look over your page carefully and make small changes if you like. When a title idea floats to the surface of your mind, write it at the top of the page.

Write the date on the page too, along with a signature or your initials.

Here is an example of what someone could write.

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.

by Nancy Casey

What warms things up? What makes you warm? What is the difference between warm enough and too warm? What line is crossed when warm becomes hot?

Think about the answers to those questions and the ideas they lead to as you set up your page.

To set up the page, draw a line across the top where your title will go. You can also draw a box or blob that you’ll use for illustration. Or make a frame along the edges that you can decorate. Set up your page with the intent of calming and focusing your mind and turning its attention to the writing task ahead.

You could write about the things that you do, consciously or unconsciously, to prepare yourself to keep warm on a winter day: the clothes and accessories you choose, where you position yourself, what you do or refrain from doing, plans that you make.

Perhaps you have a responsibility for the warmth of people or things outside of yourself: plants, pets, a family member, a car… How do you warm them? Do you have a job or other daily activity that involves warmth somehow?

As you write, you can expand your thoughts beyond physical warmth. What has warmed your heart? What can warm a relationship that’s turned cold? What is the purpose of the warm-up part of activities like sports, music, groups and classes?

Sometimes things, people, or situations go beyond getting warm and become hot. What happens when you are physically hot? What about hot tempers or the form of hot that makes you get every answer right on a test—and fast? It can mean all kinds of different things when one person calls another one hot—what is your experience of that?

Keep your mind under the umbrella of warm and hot as you fill up the page. Don’t plan too much, simply begin writing at the top and keep putting down ideas until you get to the bottom. Perhaps you will write a string of almost-random thoughts. Maybe you will tell one story—or just a part of one.

If you add illustration to your page, you could use warm colors like red, orange and yellow and see if that warms up your ideas more.

When the page is full, look it over carefully and make small changes if you like. When a title idea floats to the surface of your mind, write it at the top of the page.

Write the date on the page too, along with a signature or your initials.

Here is an example of what someone could write.

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.

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.

by Nancy Casey

You can go straight. Get straight. Act straight. Walk straight. Look straight. Think straight. See straight…

There’s straight up, straight down, straight to, straight past, straight over, straight through…

Think about all the things you could say and think that have the idea of straight in them somewhere. Let your mind wander around these thoughts as you draw a line across the top of your page where your title will go. Set aside some space for illustration. (If you would rather draw than write, make the illustration space really big.)

Start drawing in the illustration space if you like, and invite your mind to keep  thinking thoughts (and tell itself jokes) about the many different ideas connected to the word straight.

Rather than wait for some “good idea” about straight come into your mind when you start writing, write down whatever thought about straight comes tumbling through your mind as your pen hits the paper in the writing space. Even if it’s not the one you were planning to write a nanosecond before.

Then keep going wherever your thoughts lead you, and take note of everything that’s straight along the way.

If you tell a story, put as many straight details in it as you can think up or remember. Use the word straight as much as you can, even if it seems to make your story turn goofy. Even if the story doesn’t get told by the time you’ve reached the end of the page.

You could decide to write something more like a list, jumping around from one straight thing or idea after another.

When you get to the bottom of the page, stop. Read over what you wrote. Do you find connections that you didn’t really plan to put there? Sometimes those kinds of connections can help you think up a title.

Whatever title you decide on, write it at the top of the page. Write the date on the page too, along with a signature or your initials.

Here is an example of what someone could write.

If it turns out you had more ideas about straight than could fit on one page, call the page “done” and the get out a clean sheet of paper and start a new one, same way you did the first one. Keep writing individual pages that way. You would probably get tired of writing pages about straight before you ran out of ideas.

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.