Lurching Towards Spring

AI-generated image of an almost spring day.

After a few days of rather pleasant weather--and people prematurely running around in shorts and t-shirts--winter has returned yet again. The devious pattern seems to be nicer weather during the work week and plunging cold on the weekends.

As we lurch towards spring, ricocheting between bitter cold and days in the mid-fifties, between snow showers, heavy fog and beautiful sunny days, it reminds me that the conditions we live under are as irrational as the people we live with. For me, the one undeniable sign that spring is on its way is the activity of birds. I will notice, usually in late January or early February, a single songbird in the distance at the first light of morning. That first song always lifts my heart. By the beginning of March, hundreds of birds are singing, not just at dawn, but all day long. A distant woodpecker can be heard pounded on a tree trunk. The buzzards are back in the skies and on the side of the roads, cleaning up roadkill.

The birds are the harbinger of spring. but they return while it is still winter. They're like your friends who relocate to warmer climes every fall but choose to return to Ohio in February. Where is the sense in that?

I think it's funny the way we tend to see the conditions around us (weather, environment, etc.) as adversarial. We talk about the heat or the cold or the wind as if they are sentient beings with an axe to grind against us. As a storyteller, the 'conditions' are an incredible tool to help shape a narrative. They can help increase pressure on a situation, ratcheting up the tension until the reader sees the weather, or the mountain, or the ocean waves as a sort of character, a supreme villain threatening their supposed hero. Even an act as simple as gardening, or mowing the lawn, can be turned into an ordeal by making the day 95 degrees with clear skies and a merciless sun. Providing no shade increases the sense of foreboding, although making the conditions so hot that your character is sweating ceaselessly while in the shade is a whole new level of torture.

These are moments of joy in writing, when you create an environment that is as hostile as you can make it, but that's not the true struggle of your narrative arc. Pay attention the next time you are covered in sweat or chilled to the bone. What does that bead of moisture feel like as it slides down your forehead? How does it sting when it falls into your eye? That icy point on the back of your neck--the one that lets you know your scarf is twisted and skin is exposed--can be an incredible learning tool. Replicate that sensation in words, and then do it again, but differently. You will be bringing life into your story telling.

Remember, my publisher Black Rose Writing and I are giving away 100 digital copies of Love: a novel of grief and desire on Goodreads. The contest runs February 20 to March 20. Winners will be notified and the ebooks sent to their libraries after the drawing. You can sign up at the link below.

Will we learn next week that the attacks on Iran were actually about their oil? We cannot abide cruelty, abuse of power, discrimination or stupidity.

Win Love!