In the News

by Nancy Casey

What’s new and different in your life lately? These virus times have brought most of us new concerns and routines. New understandings and knowledge. New beginnings. New ways of problem-solving. New connections. New distances.

It’s overwhelming when everyone is cast into such newness at once. But newness isn’t new. Every day, every moment is new. Even if we tend not to notice.

As you set up your page, think about what’s new in your life lately. Have you had new thoughts? Have you noticed anything recently that you never really noticed before? What new things are you doing these days? Are you learning new kinds of information?

The page setup takes a while. Do it slowly and think about what’s new to you lately. Big things and little ones, related to the virus and not.

Draw the usual line at the top of your page where the title will go. Then divide the remainder of the page into four equal sections by drawing a vertical line and a horizontal line. Inside each of the four sections, draw a pretty-big rectangle. Plan to write inside the rectangles and draw or decorate the rest of the space.

Label each rectangle, using these four headings:

Think – Notice – Do – Information

In each of the rectangles write down what’s new to you in that category. Don’t force yourself to think specifically about the virus, and don’t avoid thinking about it either. Do notice where your mind tends to go and encourage it to go other places as well.

Skip around and gradually fill the page. Write inside the rectangles. Doodle around the outside of the rectangles. Until the page is full.

Read over your work. Make small changes if you need to. Add more color or decoration to the page if you want to. When you are satisfied with the page, give it a title and write the date on it, too.

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. She occasionally teaches a Write-For-You class at the Recovery Center. For more information about classes and writing certificates, contact Nancy or the Latah Recovery Center.

 

by Nancy Casey

The more you look for things that are growing, the more growing things you will find.

Your mission today, in order to write your page, is to notice what’s growing.

You could begin by going outdoors into the spring day and taking a short walk, noticing all the particular types of growing that is happening around you. You could also notice spring growth by parking yourself near a window, or a houseplant.

You don’t have to limit yourself to plants, though. Or animals. Or even the outdoors. Is anything growing in your refrigerator? If you have hair, it’s growing.

Check in with your senses. Can you hear any sounds growing? Are there sensations on your skin that can grow? When something aromatic gets near your nose, what grows?

What grows when you grow drowsy?

Thoughts and ideas can grow in your imagination. They get bigger on their own when our store of information grows. They also grow when they connect to each other. What thoughts have been growing in your mind lately?

Feelings grow, too. Can you find words to describe how feelings like anger or acceptance grow in your mind and body? What grows so big inside you that you laugh? What has to grow so you can make a decision?

Roll the idea of growing around in your mind while you gather your writing tools and prepare your page to write. Draw a line where the title will go and set off a space for a drawing or two. Before you begin to write, wander somewhere.

You can wander physically by going from one random spot to another, indoors or out. You can stay in your chair and pretend you are the camera on a mosquito-sized drone exploring your surroundings. You can send an imaginary drone inside yourself to cruise around and notice what’s going on in your body and mind.

As you wander, ask, “What’s growing?”

When you notice something growing, write down what it is, how it grows and why you know it is growing.

You might fill the whole page by writing about one single thing. Or your page could turn out to look more like a list. Maybe you would rather draw what you notice growing, so that drawing takes up most of the page and there are only a few words on it.

Regardless of how your page fills up, look everything over when you are finished. Make small changes if you want to. Give your work a title and write the date on it, too.

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. She looks forward to having  Write-For-You classes in person again at the Recovery Center. For more information about classes and writing certificates, contact Nancy or the Latah Recovery Center.

 

by Nancy Casey

When you have a writing practice, it doesn’t really matter what you write. The only thing that matters is that you fill up the page. Sometimes you will startle yourself with how brilliant you are. Other times you will say, “Meh. Why am even doing this?”

Even a lackluster page is a good page because you mind is working in the background, rolling over what you did and didn’t write, knitting the details together and making you a little bit more grounded.

For today’s writing, you will start with nonsense and see where it might take you.

What writing could be more nonsensical than random squiggles?

Draw a line at the top of the page where your title will go. Then scatter a half dozen or so random squiggles evenly across the page.

Do any of them remind you of anything? A face? A bunny? A puddle? A shoe?

Pick one of the squiggles and add something to it. You could put more lines to complete the drawing. Or give it a cartoon bubble so it can say something. Or write what it is (or isn’t) next to it.

Do this for each one of the squiggles.

If you have a squiggle that is absolutely meaningless to you, add another squiggle to it and see if it turns into anything.

Don’t think very hard. Just keep messing around until your page is full.

Maybe you will end up with a page that has people or objects talking to each other. Maybe each tiny drawing will be its own masterpiece. Maybe your page will look like spaghetti with worms. Perhaps you will like some parts more than others. It doesn’t really matter.

What matters is that you sat down with your writing materials and filled up a page.

Look over the whole page. Keep adding to the drawings or writing more words until something occurs to you that somehow connects everything together. That will be your title. Or the idea for your title. Write a title at the top of the page along with the date.

Take a moment to think about what this writing was like. We easily recognize “writing” when we see a wall of orderly words on a page. This page shows you how writing can be random and disorderly, too.

Whatever you write, you mind will keep working on it, creating order, making sense, and reminding you who you are.

Even after you put the page away. Even when you are asleep.

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. She occasionally teaches a Write-For-You class at the Recovery Center. For more information about classes and writing certificates, contact Nancy or the Latah Recovery Center.