4 Reasons Why Fall is a Great Time for Writers and 5 Quotes for Inspiration

Fall is a great time for writers. Here are three reasons why this season recharges my soul.

1. Step outside and the senses are sharpened.  Sight, Touch, Taste, Smell, Sounds - those key tools in a writer's toolbox are quickly awakened. 

With the rush of cool air across the skin or into the lungs, with the bright colors changing across the landscape from morning to night, with both new and familiar smells of foods offered up at regional harvest festivals, there is an invigorating sense of a larger world around us and our connections to it.

2. Along with this seasonal realigning of the senses also comes a sense of urgency in both tackling new projects or wrapping up old ones as the holidays bob on the horizon.  Writers and illustrators have 2 different community challenges available to participate in during the fall season: Inktober and NaNoWriMo. 

I've loved watching the sketches done by my illustrator friends show up in my social media feeds during Inktober. Getting a glimpse of their talent from day to day is another kind of inspiration for the creative spirit.

3. The swift transitions in weather and temperature can offer unexpected surprises - both good and bad. Experiencing them reminds me of getting beyond the climax of a good book and on the way to a satisfying ending.

Brisk mornings that unwind into pleasant, warm afternoons remind us to take hold of opportunity when it presents itself because soon the warmer temperatures will lead to cooler ones at night. Although cooler nighttime temperatures can offer their own rewards - a warm fire in the hearth, a cozy blanket on the sofa, a cup of hot tea or cider steaming beneath our lips.

4. As the year's end approaches, the Fall season offers a final opportunity to readjust and establish goals. I write both picture books and middle grade novels, and this November I plan on jumping into NaNoWriMo to spur myself on to finishing a novel that I've already started. I've got a bit of a head start, so call me a cheater, but I prefer to think of it as having my course already scouted and mapped. The big trick will be sitting down daily to reach the final destination. But I am already beginning to get tingled with the anticipation of working through it.


Here are some great quotes from writers that I like to believe were inspired by interactions with nature.

"The bluebird carries the sky on its back." - Henry David Thoreau

"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars." - Walt Whitman

"Never lose an opportunity to see anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all." - Emily Dickinson

"If you look the right way, you can see the whole world is a garden." - Frances Hodgson Burnett


Happy writing!

Earth Day and Stewardship, a challenge for writers

Earth Day came and went, and I wrote this post, but forgot I hadn't finished it. So, here we go.

It seems like as time goes on, Earth Day is no longer just a day that garners a bit of attention from a minority of the population once a year in April. Instead, the idea of Earth Stewardship has slowly taken hold of the public at large, as well as religious institutions and world leaders, presumably due to the problems that loom around every natural resource on our planet and which can no longer be so easily ignored. As such, this year marks numerous upcoming conferences and media events that spotlight the ramifications of adverse ecological change on the health and sustainability of the human population.  Of course, humans aren't the only living beings that will be affected, but it is with us and our fate that many can most easily relate, and so that is where the attention will predominately lie.

Keeping that in mind, I've decided to turn my attention to one of my own communities -- that of writers, and issue a challenge. Writers have a way of starting things. Garnering attention. Getting people to notice something and get excited about it. Things like, A to Z mystery series, cooking series, mysteries that involve cooking, furry creatures that evoke kindness, angels that inspire good deeds, ideas of life after death, and even ideas of cheating death.  Thus, I would like to challenge all writers to take notice of the way that all people depend on a healthy planet. And with those thoughts in mind, I would like to challenge writers to start invoking another idea, one that can go along with so many others that have taken hold -- the idea that tending to a healthy Earth is a good thing to do, an appealing thing to do, a smart thing to do, and maybe even sexy thing to do. Whatever slant works for you, my challenge is to have you see if you can work that perception into your stories. Not to teach -- that's the last thing we want to showcase in our stories -- but just to have the idea be an integral, inherent fiber of the overall fabric of whatever world it is that you strive to create in your storytelling.

I don't watch a lot of television, but I did catch that the series "New Girl," starring Zooey Deschanel as Jessica Day, has the idea of stewardship written into the story line of at least one episode with the fact that she apparently prefers environmentally-friendly products, for example. Thus, this challenge is doable, and I suspect it is already being done in many areas. But that doesn't mean that there isn't room for more growth in this area. Many more writers can inspire readers to take notice of what it means to live a sustainable life and how it can be done. Many more writers can write in a way that gets their readers to reflect on stewardship, and then perhaps some will be inspired or see how they can make changes toward achieving their own healthy, sustainable living.

We've got plenty of documentaries that show us the problems our world is facing, from slaughtered and diminishing dolphin populations, to dwindling giraffe populations, to deteriorating oceans that are drowning in plastics, to dwindling forests of all kinds, to melting glaciers and dying polar bears, to disappearing wetlands, to decreasing song birds and raptors, to unsustainable water practices, to toxic spills from industrial and agricultural wastes, and the list goes on and on. Yet, the source of the problem is the same. Us. And the problems continue. Not only with us, but most certainly with every other living creature on the planet, and also with the nonliving natural resources on which everything depends (i.e., water, air, soil, land).

But we as writers can be a part of the solution in showing how sustainable and Earth-friendly actions can be effortlessly done by simply infusing these behaviors into our stories, our characters, our decisions. And we as readers, perhaps can learn from them in a way that doesn't detract from the entertainment that we sought in the first place.

As a writer, I'm challenging myself. I'm challenging you. And I hope that in some way that will translate into challenging readers, who in turn can share and challenge each other..

Happy Earth Day. Happy Earth Year. Happy Earth Living. Happy Stewardship.