Seasonal Journaling

Each season offers its own unique beauty, but if I had to choose my favorite writing season, it would be spring. There is something about the flecks of sunlight, the bursting of yellow, white and mauve crocuses, different color tulips, infant buds, the smell of spring rain and sound of thunder, which drives me to the blank page to an essay or poem. In springtime, my most treasured moments are spent sitting at the little bistro table in my garden with a new notebook cracked open, writing whatever flutters into my mind. I may be inspired by the wings of a passing butterfly or charmed by the smells and wonders of spring. I love hearing the sound of the chirping birds and watching the baby rabbits chasing one another in and out of the bushes surrounding my house. In the spring the air has a renewed freshness about it, a sense of newness, free from toxins.

With the arrival of summer, there is another sense of newness, but it’s also a time when the kids out of school and traveling becomes paramount in many people’s lives. Editors and publishers take holidays and manuscripts often sit on desks unopened. The fall offers another new beginning as we welcome the changing colors of the deciduous trees.

Winter is a good time to be indoors and for some this is conducive to writing. Personally, I see winter as an ideal season to revise my newest musings and also a good time to send work to publishers and magazines after months of brewing on the pages of my journal or behind the brightness of this computer screen. An acceptance letter is a good way to bring the needed warmth during that time of year, when the natural world hibernates awaiting next spring where a new story is born. No doubt, my writing season lasts 365 days per year. For me, being a writer means being overtaken and obsessed by the profession which chose us, regardless of the season or the vulgarities or niceties of the weather.