Here's some writing exercises with a New Orleans influence perfect for this hurricane season:
1) Go to FEMA’s webpage (www.fema.gov) and explore disasters in your state. Or if not in the US explore the usefulness of their tips on how to avoid and prepare for disasters. Examine issues of safety in your writing.
2) Plan an escape route. What or who will you take, how will you get there, and what will you feel if you can never return home.
3) Research a specific species of plant native to your region or if not native, how it arrived there. Write about its history, present and future.
4) Construct a city with language. What is your infrastructure?
5) Explore how first responders work. Who will come for you if you are in need? What are your expectations of police, firemen, National Guard, etc.? How are they valued in society?
6) Explore geography in your region: where your home lies, when it was built, when the neighborhood was erected, what is the history of your physical place.
7) Wherever you live, write the story of your house, room by room, wall by wall, and ceiling and floor. Explore what is hidden and why versus what can be seen.
8) Make a new alphabet.
9) What are the property laws in your area? How is property allocated? How much is truly public space? Where are the homeless? What is kept safe and what areas are more valued?
10) Imagine the place most poignant to your childhood memories, a house, location or city. If they ceased to exist in physical space, what would you miss and what are your ideas about impermanence?
and a poem for naming wind:
2008 Hurricane Names
Approach
Betray
Complex
Differ
Ever
Fingertips
Heart
Insoluble
Just
Kill
Language
Moral
Not
Outlook
Particular
Ringmaker
Success
Towards
Wasp
-Megan Burns
1919 Das Undbild [The And-Picture]