Change With The Seasons

With Monday came fall – though the stores would have one believe it’s time to herald in Christmas…I mean don’t get me wrong I love me some Christmas, but I also love me some Halloween.

I love the atmospheric resonance of all things fall. The rainy days, the crunchy leaves, the vibrant last burst of life reaching peek. I love the haunting mood that’s invoked with the changing colors of all that abounds, not only in nature but in the heavens themselves as light casts different shadows, days getting shorter and darker.

I love that it makes me think of Poe, of cigar smoke and rich libraries entrenched with old books and scents of ink, paper, and history.

That with every ice laden breeze – the kind that cuts through the warmth the sun casts upon skin and into the very marrow of bone – comes a memory provoked of the last time I felt its spine tingling presence, of the best times.

I think of windblown hair and plaids, leaden skies and all things lost.

How stories, following the same course of nature and life, create a cycle, a beginning, middle, and end to all things and themes presented. Not always in the form of farewells and fallen bits, but in growth, set backs, change, and meaning. Every living thing is born for the purpose of continuing life yet each adds its unique interpretation of the same cycle given.

There are no real differences to be had when it comes to individual purpose, we are very much equal in our presence reasoning. That reasoning being to continue, how we choose to move it forward is wherein lies the interest.

Seasons are constant, life repeats, but in finite variations. What on the surface appears the same deserves dissection and inspection. There is no such thing as ordinary, just a lazy mind. Intricacies exist in the every day, in what some may deem “ordinary” and “normal.” In every action and reaction, however minute or outrageous, lie a billion differences.

That’s why observation is one of the most pivotal skills in a writer’s arsenal. It’s important to see the wide range of diverse psychologies out there, but also to be able to in some form or other experience them to a point. To be able to transport themselves into a feeling, a moment, and state of being.

Daydreams lead me to create new worlds, to think in new ways, and challenge the capacity of my emotions.

What does it feel like to watch as the the home you’ve always known fades into the background of lands horizon? To live without the love of your life, the love who’s loss you alone were responsible for? What made you love, hate, betray, corrupt?

What does if feel like to be the loveless, the scorned, the damned, or devilishly triumphant? To be the hero, the villain, the loser, the dying or dead?

To me there is nothing better then to embrace the changes in the world around me and use each – the subtle and profound – to inspire a scene, a feeling, a memory or anything else that you can use to influence the depths of your characters, their worlds, and motivations.

I love to put myself in a moment and allow my importuning senses to tell me a story. To add substance to every look I describe, every movement I detail, or desire I relate.

They tell you to write what you know so I say why not use the world, the seasons, every smell, and sensation to help get to know what you write?