To Everything There is A Season!

 

By: Marcia King-Gamble

A time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck…

That said, I’ve always loved the change of seasons, a strange phenomenon for someone who grew up on a Caribbean Island with only one season- Summer.  Funny thing is, when you live where there is eternal Summer, one day turns into another, and before you know it a year goes by, and endless paradise can get boring.

Given my life in the islands, the move to an area where there were actually seasons excited me. Snow was something I welcomed, providing I did not have to drive in it.  Cold I could deal with, just add another layer of clothing. Winter brought with it skiing, skating, and the lighting of the tree in Rockefeller Center.  

Come Spring, and I was ready for crocuses and daffodils-the kinds of perennials that never grow on a warm Caribbean Island. Spring was a prelude to summer. Summer meant beaches, boat rides and trips to Fire Island and the Hamptons. That is when the Hamptons were affordable and home to burgeoning musicians and playwrights.

Then came Fall with its beautiful colors. If you lived in a big city, like I did, Fall meant relief from the humidity. It was also the beginning of the Broadway season, and new Broadway plays. Professional  shows are something I sadly miss. No traveling troupe can make up for a Broadway show, of course this is just my opinion.

So, what is my favorite season? Not Summer, that’s for sure, and certainly not Summer in South Florida. I would have to go with Spring. Why Spring? Because Spring holds promise. In Spring, everything comes alive and I am insanely happy. I look forward to what's ahead. To me it's a rebirth. It gives me purpose.

  About Marcia King-Gamble

USA bestselling romance writer, Marcia King-Gamble originally hails from a sunny Caribbean island where the sky and ocean are the same mesmerizing shade of blue. This former travel industry executive has spent most of life in the United States. A National Bestselling author, Marcia has penned over 34 books and 8 novellas. She has contributed to Michael Fiore’s DigitalRomanceInc and served as a moderator on the now defunct eHarmony advice boards.  Having witnessed the bad, the ugly, and the not so good in relationships, she still prefers to write about happily ever after. Caring for her animal family keeps her grounded and sane.

Visit Marcia at www.lovemarcia.com or “friend” her on Facebook: http://bit.ly/1MlnrIS

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Summer as a Leading Character (because season matters!)

 

by Kristin Holt

 USA Today Bestselling Author of Sweet Romance set in the Victorian American West

Today is March 21st. Spring Equinox. Halfway between the Winter Solstice (longest night of the year) and Summer Solstice (longest day of the year). The solstices and equinoxes (spring and fall) have been celebrated all over the world since before Christianity, before much written history, simply put: before. The Wikipedia page is so long you'll zone out before you're 1/10th of the way through. Unless you're a history geek like me.

Let's talk about something else.

The SEASON of the year is a strong and valued player in fiction.

I've written dead of winter romances and peak of summer romances. Whether the bitter cold and short days become the vital antagonist, stealing the hero's hope of saving the girl (The Marshal's Surrender) or long, hot summer days bring the hero and heroine together in surprising ways (Courting Miss Cartwright), I tend to ensure the season is a valued player.

Why?

Fiction doesn't happen in a vacuum.

1. Fiction doesn't happen in a vacuum. If you've ever read a "Story In Vacuum"--fiction before a green screen--you know readers need a setting, and that setting had better matter.

2. Heat, long days, and short nights lend summertime to one kind of romance (I write only Rated G or PG--and yep, matters to "sweet" too), while numbing cold, limited daylight, and tight quarters (who wants to be out in that blizzard?) suit another.

3. Remember the truth about fiction: No Conflict, No Story. Weather is a natural conflict-producer. Cue storms from delicate spring shower to a monsoon/ tornado/ blizzard.

I've shared why Weather (winter, in this case) can assume the role of villain. Now I'll flip to the light side and share why summer can (and should) assume the role of a leading character...villain, sidekick, friend, instigator.

Summer, as Leading Character:

Every summer does indeed have its own story.

1. Entirely different range of possibilities for out-of-doors scenes than in other seasons. I really hate writing a book with every scene cooped up in the same log cabin. Not good conflict to build a story.

2. In the nineteenth century (my scope), people were on the move in summer. Winter was iffy. Throughout the 1880s alone, winter conspired for ten long years to keep trains from moving, people locked down, and let's not even talk about the flooding that followed. Hot and dry? Vegetation for animals? Let's go!

3. Summertime put nineteenth century folk to work from sunup to sundown with the work of living. Farmers had time to sit and play cards in winter. Maybe. Virtually everything in life revolved around natural sunlight--time to go to bed, time to arise, how much work could be accomplished, what crops were growing and had to be irrigated, keeping the equipment functional, raising and training new animals, and getting enough to eat. Note: this is setting, not story.

4. Summer can just as easily take the starring role of villain: tornado season, killing heat, droughts, crop failure, sun exposure, etc.

5. Because. Summertime equals BEACH READ, in any romance category. Who wants to lay on the beach and read a Christmas story?

We might not be quite ready for a beach read...so, what are you reading this Spring Equinox (March 21st)? Is it important to you to read a book set in the same season as you're personally living?

Please scroll down and comment in the space provided. I'd sincerely like to know!

Hi! I'm Kristin Holt, USA Today Bestselling Author.

I write frequent articles (or view recent posts easily on my Home Page, scroll down) about the nineteenth century American West–every subject of possible interest to readers, amateur historians, authors…as all of these tidbits surfaced while researching for my books. I also blog monthly at Sweet Romance Reads, Sweet Americana Sweethearts, and Romancing the Genres.

I love to hear from readers! Please drop me a note. Or find me on Facebook.

Sweet Romance Appropriate for All Audiences

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Copyright © 2017 Kristin Holt LC

Changing seasons of my writing life by Paty Jager

This month on Romancing the Genres is about Changing Seasons and Anthologies.

If you read the Saturday blog here, you know I wrote about anthologies. What to look for when you are asked to be in one and how to approach writing for one.

Today, I'm writing about changing seasons. I'm not talking about winter, spring, summer, or fall. This is the change in seasons I've discovered in my writing.

When I started out, I wanted to write mysteries. If you've been a follower of this blog you know I had trouble finding the help I needed to perfect my craft. I switched to romance and had a wonderful time writing steamy historical western romance books. The Halsey Brothers Series is still a favorite with my readers.

I tried to write to a trend. I'd heard editors at a conference say they wanted historical paranormal romance. Unfortunately, they didn't want Native American historical paranormal romance which is what I came up with. Luckily, the small press I was with at the time didn't care it was hard to categorize. They just loved the trilogy.

The self-publish wave grew and crashed through the barriers that made it hard for an author like me, who didn't write stories easily tagged. Author friends who were already self-published prodded me to join them.  I finally took the plunge and I'm happy I did.

With the power to write whatever I wanted, I wrote an action adventure trilogy with a female MacGyver/Indiana Jones character. I loved writing them and the readers who have picked them up have enjoyed them. The first book won an award. But I either haven't promoted them right or the covers aren't a good portrayal because I'm lucky if I sell one of those a month. This is when I wonder if self-publishing was a good choice.  Maybe an editor or publisher would have known where to market the books, but then again, Maybe I need to promote them as Romantic Suspense rather than Action Adventure. And change up the covers. That is on my to-do list for this year.

My historical western fans weren't happy with the stand alone westerns, so I came up with a few more Halsey books. Halsey Homecoming trilogy involves the younger people who came into the Halsey family through marriages.

However, my desire to write mysteries came back and I became determined this time, I would come up with a series and I would write it and self-publish. The Shandra Higheagle Mystery series has been a joy to write and it is my best selling series. There is a bit of paranormal as her deceased Nez Perce grandmother comes to the amateur sleuth, Shandra Higheagle, in dreams giving her clues to help her solve the murders. And she has a love interest in the County Detective, Ryan Greer. There are wonderful quirky characters, a big cowardly dog, a cat that thinks its a fur collar and horses. All set at and around a fictional ski resort on a mountain in Idaho.

And now, I've come up with a wonderful new historical western series that I hope my readers will enjoy reading as much as I am plotting and making up characters. It will be: The Ladies of the Silver Dollar Saloon. With a handsome saloon owner who has saloon girls who sing and dance and entice the men to buy more drinks. They, however, are not to bed any of the clientele. He doesn't run a brothel.

And that is how the seasons of change have come to my writing life.

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