Preparedness Essentials
When I show my former English teacher wife a new draft of a project, she often responds, “THAT’S A DISASTER!”
When this occurs, I celebrate that I’ve at least accomplished one of my writing goals of eliciting an emotional response from my reader.
Goal accomplished? Not really. It’s just a “gentle” reminder from my wife that a draft is a draft and there’s a whole lot of work to be done.
The disaster comment, however, did trigger a thought. A thought that happened to coincide with my May 2025 STEM Tuesday assignment on Natural Disasters. When I checked the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) website for natural disaster preparedness information, I found a list of four tips they provide to help people get ready.
- Be informed
- Make a plan
- Assemble a kit
- Maintain your plan and kit
As I read the list, the first thought that popped into my head was “Man, this is so simple and so powerful. Why haven’t I done all these steps yet to prepare for tornado season in Kansas?”
The second thing that popped into my head was a realization that these four simple tips for natural disaster preparedness seamlessly mesh with writing and creating. My brain exploded. My thoughts ran wild. My STEM Tuesday Natural Disasters post plan fell into my lap.
Wow! Listening to my wife actually paid off.
Who knew?
no, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Be Informed
A pretty straightforward one here, right? Do the work to gather the information and mental power needed to start and finish a project. Whether that’s knowing the inside and outside of a nonfiction manuscript you’re writing, or all the necessary details that make works of fiction jump off the page, the creative brain needs to be loaded. The quality of input directly affects the quality of the output. Just as knowing what media and emergency sources to pay attention to can greatly improve chances of a healthy outcome in a natural disaster, having a creator brain loaded with good information greatly improves the chances of successful creation.
Make a Plan
Yes, even the pantster creator needs a plan. Even if their planning is not as stringent or as deep as the classic plotter, planning provides direction toward achieving the goal. With a plan directing the effort toward the final goal, none of the stockpiled creative currency and energy is wasted. Even when the final product barely resembles the first draft, a creator can reap maximum rewards from their creative currency driven by a plan.
Assemble a Kit
A disaster survival kit might include fresh water, food, flashlights, batteries, and medications. Reliable and necessary things that assist in working through a natural disaster. A creator’s kit is similar. It contains physical tools, like notebooks, pens, brushes, media, computers/tablets, and desk space. The creator’s kit also contains the skills required to create what the creators want to create. Language, grammar, drawing/painting, storytelling, and narrative skills are just a few examples of skills that belong in the creator kit.
Maintain Your Plan & Kit
The disaster kit should be inspected several times a year to ensure the food and water are fresh, the batteries are not dead, the flashlights work, and the radio works despite the kids constantly getting into the kit to play with the “ancient” communications technology. The disaster plan needs to be discussed and rehearsed so everyone knows what to do in an emergency.
Regular maintenance of the creator’s kit is just as vital to ensure it’s ready to create when the creator is ready to create. Practice and repetition are probably the most important things for the creator to maintain or upgrade skills. Being open to learning is always a beneficial path for creators to take in maintaining or upgrading their creator kit.
See? Natural Disaster preparation can provide lessons in building a successful creative practice!
Now that you know, you can go and build your creative preparedness plan, although you might wait until after you take care of your natural disaster preparedness plan.
Stay safe, friends! We need you around to create your wonderful work!
Dave Harlow, USGS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Mike Hays has worked hard from a young age to be a well-rounded individual. A well-rounded, equal-opportunity sports enthusiast, that is. If they keep a score, he’ll either watch it, play it, or coach it. A molecular microbiologist by day, middle-grade author, sports coach, and general good citizen by night, he blogs about sports/life/training-related topics at www.coachhays.com and writer stuff at www.mikehaysbooks.com. Two of his science essays, The Science of Jurassic Park and Zombie Microbiology 101, are included in the Putting the Science in Fiction collection from Writer’s Digest Books. He can be found roaming Bluesky under the guise of @mikehays64.bsky.social and @MikeHays64 on Instagram.
The O.O.L.F Files
This month on the Out Of Left Field (O.O.L.F.) Files, we take a deep dive into natural disasters through educational materials, current issues, and a blast from the past.
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
PBS Learning Media
USDA Forest Service
(NOTE: May 18, 2025, was the 45th anniversary of the Mount St. Helens eruption. It doesn’t seem that long ago. A high school friend whose family moved to Washington state just before the eruption brought a sandwich bag of volcanic ash when he returned for a visit to Kansas in the summer of 1981. I still have that bag in storage. It helps me remember the event across 45 years of time and space.)
U.S. Forest Service- Pacific Northwest Region, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Launched in February 2003, Ready is a National public service campaign designed to educate and empower the American people to prepare for, respond to and mitigate emergencies and disasters. The goal of the campaign is to promote preparedness through public involvement.
- Ready’s Build a Kit Resources
Janet Slingerland has written over 2 dozen books for young readers. To find out more about Janet and her books, check out her website: 
