It’s raining, it’s pouring
The old man is snoring
He went to bed and bumped his head
And didn’t get up until morning!

It’s raining today where I am, just hard enough for me to hear the commotion, but gentle enough to qualify it as a spring rain. It’s been raining for hours, too, watering my plants and greening things up all over the yard.

I love it when it rains on the days I’m able to sleep in. The room stays dark and cool, I hear the pattering of the rain on the eaves, and I can pull my feather pillow closer and snooze a little longer.

It’s apparently not bothering the birds, who are our in murders, chimes and parties (crows, wrens, and blue jays) searching for worms.

(Really, they ought to try the driveway, because that’s where all the worms hang out on rainy days. Up on the hill is so last week.)

Here’s Your Prompt:

• Write about a group of employees stuck at work, because the rain (the storm) is so bad they can’t get home.
   
• Similarly, write about a group of people huddled together in a bus stop shelter. What happens when they’re there for an “extended” period of time.
   
• Write from the point of view of the storm: are you the tiny raindrop, the dark, thundering cloud, or the bolt of lightening? Are you something else?
   
• Write about the best time your were trapped out in the rain. Write about the worst.
   
• Write how you feel about rain. Do thunderstorms affect you more than gentle spring rains? Do you hate all rain? What would be better in your life without it? What would be worse?
   
• Consider:

  Kase here am facts days mighty plain, An’ any time you sees ’em you kin look fuh rain… ~ James Weldon Johnson, ed. The Book of American Negro Poetry. 1922.
   
  Do you (or your character) always look for rain? Write about a time you (or your character) were looking for rain–as usual–and were surprised not to find it.
   

• Re-write an important scene in your current work in progress so that it happens while it’s raining. How can the intrusion of rain make your scene more dramatic?
   
• Write about:

  Dusk in the rain-soaked garden, And dark the house within. A door creaked: someone was early To watch the dawn begin. But he stole away like a thief in the chilly, star-bright air… ~ Siegfried Sassoon, The Dark House, 1920
   

• Write a story where record-breaking floods (caused by rain) destroy someone’s life. (This isn’t about killing a character, this is about the flood waters taking away the most important part of his or her life: his family, his lover, her livelihood, etc.)
   

Good Luck!

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