The writer’s transition from winter into spring

Glossy green leaves, a little bedraggled from winter’s onslaught, form a backdrop for springtime’s advances. New green capsules swell with promise.

Every new season is accompanied by anticipation. I watch and wait, although I’m not always sure for what. The gardens beckon but the soil is still too wet to work. Ears strain for the ribbit of the first tiny tree frogs in the marsh, the screech of the returning red-winged blackbirds. I wonder if chickadees will choose to nest in our new birdhouse this year.

Winter’s yearning leans into spring’s renewal and daylight hours lengthen.

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Throughout the season’s transition my fingers hover over the keyboard day by day, my brain searching for a fresh approach to a lagging story.  The words seep out, sometimes like drips and trickles from a gutter.

There are seasons in a writer’s endeavour – times of dreariness followed by illumination and renewed creation.

Like the perennials in my garden, I know new words are nestled below the surface of my consciousness, awaiting their moment of rebirth. With appropriate nurture they will emerge when the time is right. In the meantime I continue to write.

How do you move from a wintry season in your writing into springtime?

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“The writer’s duty is to keep on writing.”


[William Styron]

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“Don’t get it right, just get it written.”

[James Thurber]

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“What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks, ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’ And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.'” 

[Maya Angelou]

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