Spring has Sprung

by Diana McCollum

Spring has Sprung as of March 21, 2023, but has it? 

March came in like a lion with snow and cold weather here in California. But is it going out like a lamb? NO! cold weather and rain predicted all week long.

The start of spring is signaled by the vernal equinox. This occurs on March 20 or March 21st and signals the start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

New beginings for a new season.

I hope you've enjoyed these memes! Wishing you all a wonderful spring!

Burst into Spring

By Courtney Pierce

There’s a reason Stravinsky wrote the “Rite of Spring” back in 1913. The shock of the new. Dissident and harmonic. Smooth and violent. The piece embodies our inner core

of change from winter to spring with all its raging hormones.

The spring season begins and ends with weather, the tease of one warm day after a crust of morning frost. The birdbath yawns to reject the decomposing leaves. Heat waves whirl and retreat, but not enough to push back dormant eggs of hatching insects. In the early morning hours, birds awaken with a piccolo call for their species. If one stands in the dark to listen, breath won’t make a sound as it streams and dissipates. In an instant, clouds boil and blacken to drop an opaque curtain of hail.

I love the spring season, the renewal of it the earth, the savagery of its power to awaken

our primal instincts. The promise of fresh vegetables begins with taking a chance on the wild weather: tornadoes, wall clouds, and flying fat snowflakes. I’m never more motivated and childlike than with the unpredictability of spring. Grab a spade and join me to dig in the dirt, grounded in mud. The earth comes out of cold storage and rises up to fertilizer-heated starters of broccoli, carrots, beans, and peas.

With spring, too, there comes an unseen energy that powers animals from within. Romance is in the air, at any age. I can attest to this. At 57, I’m getting married in June, and I feel like a teenager. The pull of a mate is indescribable, and not just to take out the garbage or fix a faulty electrical outlet. This mate's a keeper for airy and heavy conversation, wishes and dreams, and for fantasies of life. I'm a lucky girl this spring.

For thousands of years, not much has changed in our internal commitment to the change of season. Well...maybe one exception . . . the post office. What ever happened to “No matter rain, snow, sleet, or hail, the post office will deliver the mail”? In this last snowstorm, it took two weeks to get my mail. For some reason, though, it only to took days to get my WiFi and cable TV back. And even less for the only entry in the mailbox: my honeymoon lingerie. Hmmm....the old and the new.

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Milwaukie, Oregon, with her bossy cat. She writes for baby boomers. By day, Courtney is an executive in the entertainment industry and uses her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor and mystery. She has studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, she is a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association and on the Advisory Council of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She is a member of Willamette Writers, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, She Writes, and Sisters in Crime. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal. 

Check out all of Courtney's books at:

courtney-pierce.com and windtreepress.com. Both print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com

 

The Dushane Sisters are back in Indigo Lake. More laughs, more tears...and more trouble. Protecting Mom's reputation might get the sisters killed―or give one of them the story she's been dying to live.

New York Times best-selling author Karen Karbo says, "Courtney Pierce spins a madcap tale of family grudges, sisterly love, unexpected romance, mysterious mobsters and dog love. Reading Indigo Lake is like drinking champagne with a chaser of Mountain Dew. Pure Delight."

Colorful characters come alive in Courtney's trilogy about the Dushane sisters. Beginning with The Executrix, three middle-age sisters find a manuscript for a murder mystery in their mother's safe after her death. Mom’s book gives them a whole new view of their mother and their future. Is it fiction . . . or truth? 

Get out the popcorn as the Dushane Sisters Trilogy comes to a scrumptious conclusion with Indigo Legacy. Due out in early 2017.

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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