I am feening for spring.
Just as much as I was after our first Vermont winter in 2021, when relief coursed through my body as an early spring sun finally brought temperatures up into the forties and fifties, warming my skin, the ground, the chicken coop, the entire world.
When God turned on the heat.
Suddenly, being outside was comfortable. Our cheeks and fingers no longer burned. All the irritating snow that made even little things more difficult was gone, thankfully. I’ve realized snow can lose its magic once the holidays are over.
This winter has been no easy ride either, as I mentioned last week, so I’m ready for it to end.
We’re close. It’s March, daylight savings happens at 2 am this Sunday, and the spring equinox will occur on Thursday the 20th. This week, we’ve had temperatures in the forties during the days, and the woodstove has stood unlit. A significant amount of snow has melted, though we’ve dealt with flash freezes overnight, making things rather treacherous in the driveway.
Let me clarify–true spring won’t be here for a while. Not until mid-May, which makes for the shortest season we have. There’s still mud season to get through, that ugly, dirty-as-hell transitional period when everything is bare and brown again, but with way more muck and sans the magical anticipation of Christmas, as you have during stick season. But, my God, I’m so ready for temps to remain above freezing.
My spring fever was evident when Daphne and I accompanied my husband into St. Johnsbury on Monday, when Daph was still on her February break from school. Jer had a barber appointment, and we all needed to get out of the house. While hubby had his head shaved and his beard shaped, Daph and I wandered around downtown. Our first stop was the local bookshop, Boxcar and Caboose. I don’t go in there often because, well, it’s dangerous for my wallet.
This was a perilous visit. I told myself I’d let Daphne pick something and I’d just look for myself, but I was seduced by the Local Authors and St. Patty’s displays, and I ended up spending $85.
I’m excited to delve into the Celtic tales. I’ve developed an interest in Wicca since we moved to the countryside and began experiencing four distinct seasons. With that has come a closer relationship with and appreciation for nature, hence the interest. That interest, in turn, has made me more curious about mythologies, subjects I’m not all that well-versed in, I’m ashamed to admit.
I’m also hoping both these books might inspire an idea for a sweet little fairytale, maybe even one set here in Vermont. Something I might be able to submit to a specific magic anthology come May.
I’d already been eyeing The Still Point by Tammy Greenwood, a Vermont author, so I went ahead and pulled the trigger on that purchase.
This looks like a nice piece of women’s fiction, and being about ballet, it was especially alluring.
I danced seriously when I was a kid, even attending a performing arts high school for a year, and I still have a deep and abiding love for this artform.
Daphne did indeed choose something: How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? by Jane Yolen and illustrated by Mark Teague. Lately, she’s developed an interest in dinosaurs, and she’s loved this new book. We had a fabulous time reading lots of books over her break, actually, which was awesome.
Curling up with good books is something I’m craving right now, given the state of everything. Our bouts with illness threw me off my reading track and now I’m way behind on my TBR, but no matter. I’m working on finishing an anthology, Alternative Liberties from B Cubed Press, and plan to post a review here next week. Up next is a historical romance, Love and the Downfall of Society by Melinda Copp, which I’ve been so eager to read.
On the writing front, I’ve definitely settled into learning mode as I’ve “kept the channel open,” to quote Martha Graham. I’m halfway through my eight week course with speculative fiction author Erin Swann, The Story Beneath the Story, learning all kinds of techniques for digging under the surface to craft implicit, emotive meaning.
We’ve learned techniques like third level emotions, negative space, I am/am not statements, character-infused voice, preventing skimming, infusing something ordinary with deep thematic meaning for a character, etc.
Some of these are things I’ve already done instinctively in my work, but it’s been wonderful to learn the psychology/rationale behind them and to add more to my toolkit. Much of what Swann teaches comes from Lisa Cron and Donald Maas, who argues, “You are not the author of what readers feel, just the provocateur of those feelings.” That’s been a fresh and fascinating perspective for me, and one that’s challenged me to let go of my desire to hammer home takeaways in my stories. I can craft certain meanings/suggestions intentionally, of course, but ultimately the piece is subjective, and readers need to make more meanings on their own.
Even as a writer–the goddess of my little universe–I cannot be a control freak, it seems. I need to trust my readers a little more than I have.
Learning mode has also meant I screwed up the courage to submit a short piece of contemporary literary fiction to a consultant at Black Lawrence Press. She will provide a detailed, high-level critique of my story, which I need because I love literary fiction but I’m not great at it, and this story was falling flat. I’d thought I might submit it to various lit mags, but I couldn’t do that until I knew how to make it better, and I was well beyond the point of self-editing.
I might still refrain from submitting it anywhere, even after I revise based on my review, but I figured the evaluation was another fantastic way to keep learning and improving. Furthermore, I liked the consultant’s philosophy: it’s not about the weaknesses in a piece, but about what should be added, removed, rearranged, etc. Until it’s published, all work, she argues, is in potentia.
I want my focus this year to be on learning. Even if that means I don’t publish as many pieces as I did last year. I want to level up my craft while also completing a second longform manuscript, and that feels like a nice tie-in with the season.
Fresh takes, new beginnings, growth.
I’m still working on a few short pieces. In fact, I just started a new spicy horror satire which I’ve been workshopping in Swann’s course, and it’s been a blast so far. If I can get the tone right and actually pull this off, I might submit it to a small horror press at the end of April. They’ve put out a submissions call for a spicy monster anthology. Go ahead and laugh because, yes, it’s ridiculous. But it also sounds fun.
However, despite this new WIP, I don’t want to make short fiction my focus.
What are you up to? How’s the weather where you are, and what do you want to focus on this season?
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Thanks so much for reading! See you next week. 🙂
XOXO,
Jenn
Jennifer Shaw 