In the News

by Nancy Casey

In times of drought, the natural world shrivels. Both plants and animals use every trick they know to prevent themselves from dying of thirst. Some seek shade, some are only active at night, others allow less essential parts of themselves to die and fall away.

And then it rains.

Here on the Palouse, the weather is turning. It has been hot and dusty for weeks. The wet season is arriving. For your writing today, notice the way everything under the sky changes as water becomes abundant again. Record some thoughts about that.

Perhaps it is raining right now. Where do the drops land? How do they change the colors, sounds, and smells around you? How do plants and animals react? What’s different about dirt and pavement? Is there anything different about you?

Sometimes the world is so dry that when it first rains, nothing seems to get wet.

When too much rain comes too fast at the end of a drought, floods and destruction can occur.

Sometimes rain can make things that seem dead come alive again.

Maybe it hasn’t rained yet, but rain is “in the air.” What does that mean? How can you tell?

Rain, or the promise of it, can send a person scurrying to bring in or cover up things that aren’t supposed to get wet. Forgotten things can get ruined because it’s hard to re-acquire habits of keeping things dry.

Going from drought to rain can bring changes in a person’s body and mind. Do you or anyone you know experience these changes?

The idea of rain after drought can also be a metaphor. A person can be thirsty for many things besides water—knowledge, friendship, travel, or relief from pain, just to name a few. What happens to a person when this kind of thirst is quenched or about to be quenched? Does anything come back to life? Might there be floods and destruction?

Fill a page with some ideas about rain after a drought. Perhaps you will write about the actual rain and drought. Maybe you will write about something that rain and drought remind you of. You can write about yourself, but you don’t have to. You could write from the point of view of a plant, an animal, or even a lawn chair.

Leave some space to draw or doodle on the page if you like. If you aren’t sure what to write, drawing and doodling can quiet your mind so ideas can spring up—like mushrooms after the rain!

When you have finished writing, reread your work. Make small changes if you need 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.

Nancy Casey has lived in Latah County for many years. You can find more of her work here. If you would like to do this exercise or others like it with a group of people, come to the Write-for-You class at the Latah Recovery Center on Thursdays at 5pm. Anyone can join. Just show up! You can attend just for fun or work to earn a writing certificate. For more information, contact Nancy or the Latah Recovery Community Center.

 

by Nancy Casey

You pick something up. Then you put it down somewhere else. How many times in a day do you do that?

That’s something you can think about in today’s writing.

Prepare your page in the usual way, with a line at the top where you will write a title. Set off some space for an illustration if you like. Drawing or doodling can help you think up what to write if you feel stuck. Making a drawing after you have finished writing is a relaxing way to think about what you wrote.

After your page is set up, begin writing about things you have picked up and put down somewhere else. Tell what you picked up, where it was, and where you put it down. You can also say why you did this or add any other information that seems relevant.

People pick up a lot of things in the course of their daily routines, from spoons and toothbrushes to brooms and keys. Parents of small children often pick up people. Some folks regularly pick up plants and pets. Some people only pick up things that belong to themselves.  Other people mostly pick up things that belong to others.

What have you picked up so far today? Where did you put it down? Have you picked up and put down anything interesting this week?

Did you pick up anything with the help of other people? Did they then help you put it down? Maybe someone else did the picking up and putting down for you at your request. Was anything like a glove, a machine, or some kind of tool involved?

Some things can be picked up, but it’s impossible to put them down. So they don’t count. You can pick up on an idea. You can pick up a bad case of the flu. You can even pick up a tune that sings itself over and over again in your head. There’s really no way to put things like these down. Is there?

Write about as many different instances of picking up and putting down as you can fit on the page.

When you have finished writing, reread your work. Make small changes if you need 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. If you would like to do this exercise or others like it with a group of people, come to the Write-for-You class at the Latah Recovery Center on Thursdays at 5pm. Anyone can join. Just show up! You can attend just for fun or work to earn a writing certificate. For more information, contact Nancy or the Latah Recovery Community Center.

by Nancy Casey

Situations can have a way of going from bad to worse, to even worse than that, and still end up with signs of optimism and hope. Today in your writing you will have a chance to imagine how that can happen.

Set up you page in the usual way, with a line where the title will go and a space for illustration or doodling. In addition, draw a faint line (or just put a couple of dots) about two inches from the bottom of the page. When you come to this mark, you will know it is time to change the subject.

Imagine somebody. An imaginary person. Don’t write about yourself or someone you know. Then you will be completely free to make things up.

Begin by writing down a moderately disappointing fact about the person. It could be something that happens to them, an idea they have, or the way that they feel.

Next, escalate. Use a phrase like, on top of that or if that’s not bad enough and add more information that makes the situation worse.

Escalate again, using an escalating phrase such as even worse, or to make matters more difficult or something similar.

Work your way down the page that way, escalating the imaginary person’s difficulties with each sentence. Use an escalating phrase each time. Try to think up a different escalating phrase each time you use one, but if you need to repeat one or two of them, that’s fine.

Continue, in your imagination, making your person’s life seem more and more difficult. You don’t have to dump murder and mayhem upon them (although you can.) You just have to make things happen that the person would probably rather have done without.

Stop writing when you get to the faint line that you marked near the bottom of the page. Add one more event to the imaginary person’s life. Don’t use any of the escalating phrases. Make this new event positive. It doesn’t have to be something that fixes everything that went wrong for the person. Just make one thing happen to them that will give them a bit of hope.

When you have finished writing, reread your work. Make small changes if you need 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. If you would like to do this exercise or others like it with a group of people, come to the Write-for-You class at the Latah Recovery Center on Thursdays at 5pm. Anyone can join. Just show up! You can attend just for fun or work to earn a writing certificate. For more information, contact Nancy or the Latah Recovery Community Center.