Seasons and Stories by Victoria Chatham

 

COMING IN JUNE

It is now officially Spring 2022. In my part of the world, it still doesn’t feel like it. I envy friends in England who have posted pictures of gardens full of colour, from gorgeous golden daffodils to blue grape hyacinths and multi-coloured primulas. I wonder how many authors use not just the weather the seasons in creating their settings.

April has a hopeful sense of the summer to come, but Charles Dickens writes: Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade, which speaks to the duality in this more than any other season of the year.

Writers look for ways to enhance the drama in their plots and the nuances of their characters, either physically or metaphorically. Just as we sometimes use the weather to create a mood or direct the way a scene goes, we can use the seasons in both our settings and in our characters’ perspectives.

I have certainly used the seasons in my books. My character, Emmaline, is abducted on a perfect September afternoon in my first Regency romance. By the time she is rescued and returns home, it is a whole month later, and the trees in the estate park have already turned colour.

In the second Regency, a lot of the book takes place at sea and in Jamaica, but Juliana calculates that she left England in January, and it’s now September. The seasons are not plot lines in either book, but more indicate the timeline.

In One for the Money, Janet Evanovich uses the season to describe Stephanie Plum’s New Jersey ‘hood: During summer months, the air sat still and gauzy, leaden with humidity, saturated with hydrocarbons. It shimmered over hot cement and melted road tar.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling writes of fall: Autumn seemed to arrive early that year. The morning of the first of September was crisp and golden as an apple.

In the movie The Winter Guest, set in northern Scotland, the husband of Emma Thompson’s character Frances dies suddenly, leaving Frances distraught. Her mother (in real life and in the movie), played by Phyllida Law, comes to stay with her. The film opens with a shot of the mother walking across frozen fields and with the camera later panning across a frozen sea. Set in any other season but winter, I’m not sure that Frances’ grief would have seemed so soul-deep. The bleakness of the setting seemed to represent the bleakness in her soul and vice versa.

Just as light and shade, time of day, rain or sunshine influence the moods we try to create for our characters, so can the season lead our readers through the seasons of our stories.

Victoria Chatham

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Fall Into Autumn by Helen Henderson

Windmaster by Helen Henderson

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Normally at this time of year, posts tend to reflect the holidays. However, I already revealed holiday traditions, both mine and those of the world of Windmaster, in other posts. There are still a couple of months in the year so it is too early to do a year in review.  I went another route. A line in last month's post inspired this one. There I mentioned that sometimes an author sets a story in a land where they want to go. This time, I'm writing about places I actually have been. This waterfall is a favorite place for pictures. And the next mountain over was a favorite place to spend many holidays and summer weekends.

Waterfall, Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania

While I have been across the Pacific Ocean, I'm not a world traveler. Vacations were camping  a day or two or three day's drive from home. The settings were woods alongside scenic rivers, at the ocean, or with views of beautiful mountains. All seasons were experienced. My favorite is autumn with its glorious colors, warm days, and cool nights for sleeping.  Cool is not always a given temperature. One night in the White Mountains of New Hampshire was so cold, the sleeping bags weren't enough and we pulled every blanket and cover out of the car to supplement it. We found out why the next morning when woke up to a layer of ice on the windshield. 

When visiting California I crossed border for a day visit with the neighbor to the south. We took advantage during a trip to Niagra Falls, New York to cross over into Canada. My longest (or farthest adventure) was driving the northern route from California to New Jersey and going up Mount Washington by car. The car was at the summit so we declined the opportunity to walk down.

Beautiful colors of Arizona

Overseas excursions were a few school class trips (with appropriate security) while living on the island of Luzon  in the Philippines, and a harrowing taxi ride during a lay-over in Tachikawa, Japan. A more pleasurable (at least less frightening) Japanese experience was the traditional hotel we stayed in. Sleeping on the tatami floor and walking in my barefeet was quite comfortable. Shoes were left at the door. Tatami is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms. The mats are made from rush and cloth where the rush is woven in, and cloth is used to cover the woven ends.

A writing note. You might notice the title. That is because the rule in school that fall is not a season was repeated and repeated until we did not use "fall" for "autumn." Enjoy the season for winter is a'coming.

Red leaves of autumn
in the Pocono Mountains

A backyard donning
her autumn colors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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~Until next month, stay safe and read. Helen

Find out more about me and my novels at Journey to Worlds of Imagination. Follow me online at Facebook, Goodreads or Twitter.

Helen Henderson lives in western Tennessee with her husband. While she doesn’t have any pets in residence at the moment, she often visits a husky who have adopted her as one the pack. 

Full Moons have names by J. S. Marlo

 

J. S. Marlo's BWL Books

On October 31, 2020, we saw something we hadn't seen since March 31, 2018. A Blue Moon. 

A Blue Moon is not blue in color. It's the second Full Moon of a  calendar month. Since the  lunar cycle is roughly 29.5 days, a Blue Moon doesn't occur very often, thus the idiom, Once in a blue moon.

 

At 28 or 29 days, February is a special month. It can't have two Full Moons, and about once every 19 years, it doesn't even have one Full Moon. When there is no Full Moon in a month, we call it a Black Moon.  The last Black Moon occurred in February 2018, when there were two Full Moons in January and March, also known as a double Blue Moon. The next Black Moon will occur in 2037.

 

The Blue Moon isn't the only Full Moon with a name. For millennia, people across Europe, as well as Native American tribes, named the months after features they associated with the seasons in the Northern Hemisphere, and many of these names are very similar or identical. Some Native names are often attributed to tribes who lived in a vast area stretching from New England to Lake Superior, and whose languages are related.

 

All the Full Moons have names--many names. Here are some of them:

 

January -> Wolf Moon  named after howling wolves. Other names are Moon After Yule, Old Moon, or Ice Moon.

 

February -> Snow Moon named after the snowy conditions. Other names are Storm Moon, or Hunger Moon due to the scarce food sources during mid-winter.

 

March -> Worm Moon named after the earthworms that come out at the end of winter. Other names are Crow Moon, Crust Moon, Sap Moon, Sugar Moon, Death Moon, or Chaste Moon.

 

April -> Pink Moon named after the pink flowers – phlox – that bloom in the early spring. Other names are Sprouting Grass Moon, Fish Moon, Egg Moon, or Paschal Moon because it is used to calculate the date for Easter.

 

May -> Flower Moon named after the flowers that bloom during this month. Other names are Corn Planting Moon, Hare Moon, or Milk Moon.

 

June -> Strawberry Moon named after these little red berries ripen at this time. Other names are Hot Moon, Mead Moon, or Rose Moon.

 

July -> Buck Moon to signify the new antlers that emerge on deer buck's foreheads around this time. Other names are Thunder Moon, Wort Moon, or Hay Moon

 

August -> Sturgeon Moon named after the large number of fish in the lakes where the Algonquin tribes fished. Other names are Green Corn Moon, Barley Moon, Fruit Moon, Grain Moon, or Red Moon.

September -> Harvest Moon if the September Full Moon is the closest full moon to the September Equinox (around Sept 22). Other names are Corn Moon, Full Corn Moon, or  Barley Moon.

 

October -> Harvest Moon if the October Full Moon is the closest full moon to the September Equinox (around Sept 22). Other names are Hunter’s Moon, Dying Grass Moon,  Blood Moon, or Sanguine Moon.

 

November -> Beaver Moon named after beavers who become active while preparing for the winter.  Other names are Frosty Moon, or Mourning Moon if it is the last full moon before the winter solstice,

 

December -> Cold Moon to signify the beginning of winter. Other names are Moon Before Yule, Long Night Moon, or Oak Moon.

 

To be honest, until today, I'd only heard of a few of them, but there are so many interesting names. Now I'm thinking I need a full moon in my next story--but which one?

Next month, I'll present my new novel, Mishandled Conviction. Until then Happy Reading & Stay safe.

Many hugs!

JS

 

J. S. Marlo's Website

Settings - Attention to details by J. S. Marlo

J. S. Marlo BWL Author Page

A new year begins and a new story unravels in my head. The first thing I ask myself when an idea takes flight is Where am I going to set that story? To be honest, I'm partial to Canada. First, because I'm Canadian, and second, because of the its changing landscape, cultural diversity, and extreme weather.

There are oceans, beaches, lakes, forests, prairies, mountains, snowy mountains, tundra...but no volcanoes. I like to create fictive small towns within two, or five, or eight hours from an existing real city. That way I can pretend there is an hospital (or no hospital) in my little town, or I can set a charming café next to a library. I can imagine whatever fits the needs of my story instead of relying on an existing town where many of the facilities are set in stone. The Calgary airport is located in the northeast of the city. I can't just pretend it's in the southwest because it's more convenient for my characters. I would get email from my Calgary readers saying "Hey, I live in Calgary. You got the airport wrong". But I can write that my character is driving three hours to catch a flight from the Calgary airport.

For me, a good story blends fiction and reality in such a way that readers can't easily tell where one stops and the other begins.

Once I chose out the Where?, I need to figure out the When? I can play with four seasons, from scorching heat to biting cold. Now depending where or when I set the story, I can add either thunderstorms, snowstorms, northern lights, gentle rain, blizzard, fog, tornadoes, earthquake, mud slides, sinkholes, glaciers, icebergs... Again, I can brew any storms I want, but it should also be realistic. In my little corner of the world, I can't possibly see northern lights at 11pm at the end of June because the sun hasn't set yet, but I could see them around suppertime in December assuming the sky is clear. I'll grant you it's a detail, but it's the kind of details a reader from a northern community will catch.

If you set a story in a real town or a country you've never visited, make sure you get the details (language, customs, time zones, weather, money, distance, etc...) right. Canadian dollars, Australian dollars, and American dollars aren't the same. Canada and Australia have one-dollar and two-dollar coins, but unlike Australians, we called them loonies and toonies. If in a story, a homeless person stops the hero on the sidewalk and asks if he has a toonie to spare for a coffee, the story doesn't take place Down Under. It takes place in Canada!

Over the summer, I was editing my romantic suspense taking place in a nursing home in Northern Ontario. At one point, my editor (who's not Canadian) commented that I needed to be consistent in my units of measurement, that I couldn't switch back and forth between inches, feet, and kilometres. A long conversation followed during which I explained that even though we converted to the metric system in the mid-1970s, we still use both systems in different circumstances. We measure long distances in kilometers but short distances in inches and feet. My son lives 800 kms away but my guestroom is 10'2" x 12'8". We weigh our food in kilograms but people and pets in lbs. My Chrismas turkey was 5.6kg but my granddaughter is 33lbs and my granddoggie is 14lbs 5oz. The indoor and outdoor temperatures are in Celsius but I set my oven in Fahrenheit. It was -33C on Christmas morning (that was cold!) but I cooked my turkey at 325F. Milk comes 1-litre, 2-litre, and 4-litre cartons but when I make a recipe I measure in cups, tablespoons, or teaspoons. It may not make sense, it may not be consistent (actually it is not consistent), but this is an authentic Canadian setting...and this is so much fun to write, so in the end, the inches, the feet, and the kilometres...they all stayed in the final version of my story.

Be creative and have fun writing, but don't forget to pay attention to details.

Happy 2019!
JS

Correction: A dear reader pointed out that we do have volcanoes in Canada, and the last eruption took place about 150 years ago at Lava Fork in northwestern British Columbia. I should have written we do not have any "active" volcanoes. So I stand corrected. My apology!

 J. S. Marlo's Website

I am SO over this summer...by Jamie Hill

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 Where I live, the heartland of the USA, we see all four seasons. Autumn, or as we generally call it, Fall, is my favorite. One hundred-degree Fahrenheit temps of the summer begin to cool off and welcome fifty-degree evenings bring sweaters and football season. The flowers that I watered all summer, trying to keep them alive, finally flourish with cooler air until they eventually freeze and die off. Pastels and 'welcome' gnomes are replaced by pumpkins that will see us through to December.

Winter is a wonderful time of year with the holidays and crisp, cold air. Snow is beautiful as long as I don't have to drive in it, and even better now that we've hired some nice young men to come and clear it away for us. We also get our share of ice, and a few years ago purchased a whole house generator so we won't be left without power. The kicker--a generator will run everything except computers, which don't like 'dirty power'. Oh, the horror. Hope I never have to put that trial to the test.

Just when I think I can't stand one more day of freezing cold temps, spring arrives. The thermometer soars to the mid-fifties and people everywhere change into shorts and tank tops. (The same weather that brought out the sweatshirts in the fall.) But spring is welcome and winter coats stored away for another season.

Before the calendar even sees June, the heat begins. There's usually a solid week between turning off the furnace and turning on the air conditioner. Especially this year, when I turned on my attic fan for the first (and only) time and a bat flew into my bedroom. I was shocked and he was even more so. Fortunately, he was either stunned or just slow, because I was able to catch him in a big butter tub and release him outside, probably just to return to my attic that night. By the way, we're still looking for a handyman to fix the mesh in our attic which apparently let the bat get in. (I'm sure there was just the one.)

That was the beginning of my summer fun. Then there was the fall my husband took outside, resulting in a torn rotator cuff and an arm he hasn't been able to use all summer. (Surgery forthcoming, when he is cleared for it.)

So we're battening down the hatches, closing down the deck and other summer details in anticipation of his being in a sling for twelve weeks. I'm actually cool with it, It's easier to hunker down in front of my computer when I'm not feeling guilty that there are things I should be doing outside. 

I am SO over this summer, ready for cooler weather and football season. And Netflix with the window open.

Find all my titles at Books We Love: http://bookswelove.net/authors/hill-jamie/

and find the links and blurbs and other good stuff here: http://authorjamiehill.blogspot.com/