Celebrating the Seasons … by Delsora Lowe

I had an oil delivery today and with it came the Farmer’s Almanac Country Calendar. With majestic and inspiring seasonal photos and snippets of stories from farmer’s almanacs that spanned several centuries, the perusal through the pages representing each month gave me thought to the visuals of storytelling.

Seasons tell a story. They are also a part of every story you read, whether used as a descriptive show of the character’s environment or as a way to set mood.

To me, seasons are all about moving forward, hope for the future, new adventures, celebrating past accomplishments and accessing the goals that didn’t quite get completed.

There are things I love about each season. And things that I would just as soon not have to experience. Each season has its own feel, scent, look, taste, sound. Each of these are things we might not notice every time we step out the door or back into our living space, because they are part of our environment. Things we take for granted. Things that are familiar to us—or not familiar at all. And that familiarity or lack of familiarity also has an impact on us.

Seasons can affect our moods. And variants of seasons can bring a continuum from joy to despondency.

Think about a damp and stormy fall day, where the air is heavy. It can be hard to breath, weigh a person down in body and spirit. Or a fall day when the sun is shining, the sky is that deep, bold blue, and there is a hefty breeze. Leaves of yellow, red, and orange swirl around your head, to land at your feet. You breathe in the scent of a wood fire drifting from a chimney, or that of a pile of your neighbor’s burning leaves.

Trees and bushes turn to fall colors. The summer flowers are now barren brown or gray stalks tipped with pods hiding seeds to replant the earth come spring. Or the day is a balmy and sunny 60, after the remnants of the first frost have evaporated before your eyes and the last few nights have been cold—a harbinger of winter to come, but a quick reminder of the summer just ended. After pulling a sweater tight as you hugged a warm mug of coffee or tea that morning to stave off the chill, now your step is filled with vigor. The sun warms your face, as you roll up the sleeves of your light jacket and stare skyward to watch one lone, puffy white cloud get carried eastward by the breeze.

How is winter different from fall, and spring different from winter, and summer different from spring? Is your mood changed by the seasons? Do you look forward to and celebrate each season in a different way?

As a writer, season can be used as a character. Seasons are part of the setting that affect your characters. Two characters in the same story can react to the season in entirely different ways that can cause conflict between the two. Or the diversity of their reactions can act as a conduit to help them form a relationship. The use of seasonal variants can add texture to the writing, whether the seasonal element causes fear, joy, longing, energy, depression. All these elements add depth to the character, the setting, and the atmosphere or mood of the story.

I hate thunderstorms. I grew up overseas and also in Washington, D.C. where we had horrendous storms. To this day, if there is a storm, I can’t sleep and I have to occupy my mind reading or watching a good romance.

I have friends who love to fall asleep to the sound of rain or wind. Not me!

Storms bring back memories of living on a mountain in Taiwan during typhoons, with our windows boarded up, sometimes for half a week or more. We knew when we opened the doors, there would be devastation all around us. But in a recent movie I watched, the storm had the heroine inviting her neighboring couple over for board games. She lit a fire, set out candles, and opened her cupboard of “storm snacks.” The hero showed up at her back door to check on her, expecting to find a worried or scared woman. Instead, he found a romantic setting and the laughter of her friends coming from the living room.

In both scenarios the weather was similar. The reaction was different.

All these elements of seasons provide setting for our real lives and the imaginary lives we write about every day.

The Prince’s Son On Zara West’s List of My Favorite Romances of 2020

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~ cottages to cabins ~ keep the home fires burning ~

Delsora Lowe writes small town sweet and spicy romances and contemporary westerns from the mountains of Colorado to the shores of Maine.

Author of the Starlight Grille series, Serenity Harbor Maine novellas, and the Cowboys of Mineral Springs series, Lowe has also authored short romances for Woman’s World magazine. Her newest novella is The Love Left Behind.

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Photo/Clip art Attributions:
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A Drummer of a Different Sort

by Courtney Pierce

Flawed characters are infinitely more interesting than those who always say and do the right things. Personally, I love to create protagonists with issues that get in the way, whether they be irrational fears, physical challenges, or emotional complexes. Great stories incorporate protagonists and antagonists who must stumble past their flaws to get out of trouble.

Who cares about the character who gets up in the morning after a restful sleep, encounters no traffic on her way to work, chats with her co-workers, and punches out to come home to a Healthy Choice dinner in front of the television? Good luck to the author who can turn that into a compelling novel.

However, the above scenario could be a fun set-up for something to happen that jolts our protagonist right off the couch. It can be as simple as a phone call, a knock on the door, or a bang on the roof that forces her to turn off a re-run of Laverne and Shirley. And after that “something” happens, it must become impossible for our protagonist to return unchanged to her normal life.

This is off the cuff, but let’s play “what if” with our boring scenario.

Our protagonist, who I'll name Lana, has a complex about being unusually tall. At six-foot-two, she has held herself back by being too self-conscious. Flat loafers are her footwear of choice, and she hunches her shoulders in an attempt to diminish her size. Co-workers find Lana's height intimidating, and so do men. Without a love life, she feels isolated, alone, and useless.

But what if there really is a loud bang on the roof while Lana is watching Laverne and Shirley reruns? She runs outside and discovers a small spaceship has crash-landed and hit her chimney. Pouring out of it are dozens of tiny inch-high aliens. Maybe they’re friendly . . . or maybe they’re not. 

When the aliens flood into the house through the mail slot, they freak out when see how tall our character is. It's Attack of the 50-Foot Woman meets Invasion of the 1-Inch Squeakies. Lana can't communicate with the aliens, catch them, or kill them. They're too fast and small.

Both sides of this confrontation are completely out of their comfort zones. How does she get those aliens to stop biting her ankles and blistering her knees with needle-like laser beams? The aliens are frightened, intimidated by Lana's size, and panicked that they might never get home. Lana is ready to get out the bug spray in self-defense.

And at the 50% mark—the climax—Lana locks herself in the bathroom and frantically searches for a pair of tweezers. She finds a set just as one of the aliens shimmies under the door and pops up to a Karate-chop stance. Lana plucks him up by his foot. While hanging between the pincers, the alien smiles and points toward the bathroom window. Lana's gaze shifts to the trajectory of the alien's tiny finger. 

Ah, hah!

A moment of understanding pushes Lana into hero mode. She has the upper hand, so to speak. The aliens need her height in order to get their spaceship operational again. Only she can reach that key spare part that is hanging by a wire at the edge of the roof. Thus, our protagonist begins her journey from victim to hero. She is desperately needed and appreciated for the very flaw that has plagued her. All of their fighting was for naught.

Lana puts on her high-heeled boots and stands up straighter.  With the spaceship fixed, it's a teary departure for our tiny aliens, all waving at their tall friend as they board. 

This could be a hilarious comedy or a scary drama, straight out of an episode of Rod

Serling's Twilight Zone. And like every one of Mr. Serling's imaginative stories, the above silly story was a simple allegory with two layers of meaning. It's that all-important second layer that latches and holds readers in their grip, because readers see themselves in the protagonist's struggle. 

In similar fashion, one of my favorite Twilight Zone stories is "To Serve Man." If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you check this one out. The premise is that aliens come to earth with seemingly benevolent intentions. They are friendly and gracious to build human trust. The humans gladly board the spaceship, on which they're given luxurious accommodations. Then the humans find out the real reason for why they're there. They've been duped. 

"To Serve Man" is a cookbook.

Photo: Micah Brooks

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Kalispell, Montana with her husband, stepdaughter, and their brainiac cat, Princeton. Courtney writes for the baby boomer audience. She spent 28 years as an executive in the entertainment industry and used her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor, and mystery. She studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, Courtney 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, and She Writes. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal.

Print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com.

Check out all of Courtney's books: 

courtney-pierce.com and windtreepress.com 

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."

Coming in 2020!

When Aubrey Cenderon moves to Montana after the death of her father, the peace and quiet of Big Sky Country becomes complicated with a knock on the door from the sheriff. An injured grizzly bear is on the loose and must be eliminated before it kills again. The sheriff's insistence that she buy a gun for protection will present Aubrey with some serious soul-searching, because the grizzly-on-the-run is hunting for her too . . . for a different reason.