Greetings, writers—
Hello from the central Ohio countryside. We’re here visiting family (lovely) and experiencing 90% humidity (less lovely). Yesterday my kids had ice cream for lunch and Blizzards after dinner; in between were Cokes and Hershey’s miniatures because, as my dad likes to say, “You can have anything you want—it’s vacation.”1
Let it be noted that my brother and I were the only kids at Carlisle Elementary whose sandwiches were made with whole wheat bread, who had oranges for dessert, and who once in an almost-never moon got to take a tiny bag of Doritos in our lunch boxes, but times change, entropy increases, etc. etc. Plus it was probably my mom who held the nutrition reins, and school lunches were life, not vacation.
Anyway, here we are, listening to the birds and cicadas, spotting deer, playing card games, Scrabble, and badminton, and debating about whether to go to the outlet mall or the waterpark-hellscape.
Ohio is weird because Cincinnati’s the south, Cleveland’s the northeast (I’ve heard it talked about like it’s the sixth borough of NYC, lol), and Columbus is, I don’t know, I guess the actual midwest2. When I was growing up we lived half an hour north of Columbus, which meant we could go there on weekends for art classes or the science museum, and during the week our sports teams (go, Pacers) played kids from the fancy suburbs and generally got our asses kicked.
I never once said “I love Delaware, Ohio” the way my kids say “I love Portland,” but it was a fine place to grow up. And these days Columbus seems actually cool. Read the poet Saeed Jones’s Substack about moving there and see if you don’t agree.
All right, Grampy and Grammy will be bringing the kids back from the diner soon, so I’d better be done with the rambling and come up with a prompt. Here goes:
Today, consider a place that is central to whatever project you’re working on. (And if you’re not in the middle of something, pick a place that’s central to your imagination/history).
Your description of this place should use the following elements:
—Something very large. If you’re outside, the sky, a mountain, a lake; if you’re indoors, the biggest thing within that room.
—Something very, very small
—Something living (besides your character)
—Something dead
Your character (who can always be you) should be alone in this space at first. They can be reflecting upon it or thinking of something else entirely. After a bit, bring in someone who disrupts the scene somehow. This person can be a stranger (welcome or otherwise), a friend, an enemy, whatever.
Play with contrasts throughout the scene (big vs small, living vs dead, alone vs not, familiar vs strange).
Happy writing—
Emily
P.S. It just started pouring. It feels like the tropics.
Full disclosure: it was my idea to have ice cream for lunch.
“What part of the Middle West are you from?” Adam Gopnik once asked me, which was yet another sentence I had to repeat to myself, giggling. Middle West! What, are we Willa Cather?