Unpredictable Forces of Nature

My five-year-old drew this. My husband scanned it and then helped her use paintbrush to add color. She wanted me to use it on my blog.

So here it is.

My four-year-old wanted to do one too -- so she went through all the same steps but didn't want me to have it. I'm going to use it anyway eventually. :)

Anyhoo, given it is a volcano, I will write about forces of nature.

In real life, nature is one of the few things we cannot control. I know someone with a severe anxiety disorder whose primary fear is weather. Don't mock it -- besides being very real to him, if we all took a step back and considered the possibilities, we might gain a healthy dose of fear. Our culture is so educated and technologically advanced. We have means of interpreting weather far beyond simply looking out the window. We can retrofit our homes to account for earth quakes and create break-away crawl spaces for floods. We can be prepared, but we can't stop nature from happening. Nature is a true wild card that can, without a moment's notice, crush us like the insignificant parasites we are. Smoosh.

Then there is the make believe world that occurs within writing. We are in absolute control (except when characters decide to deviate from my plans without telling me, but that's another topic) and can program setting details like the weather to suit our needs. So we do. We take advantage of our god-like powers and modify our environments to suit our stories.

Just to challenge myself, I decided to screw with the weather. My scene required a snowstorm, and I threw my outline for a loop when I made it a pleasant night. Now my characters were not trapped by weather. What would they do?

It was sort of fun. I mean, in real life, weather does neither cooperates or works against us. It just is. It was a fun challenge to throw a real life curve ball into my story.

What do you do to keep yourself on your toes?