Winter Solstice

I love winter. I love the quiet of a steady snow.

There is something about the cold and the whiteness of winter that makes it easier to focus on essentials--essentials of our days, essentials of stories. We're not distracted by riotous summer with its blooming buzzing confusion of color and busy life happening all around.

Winter makes us listen. Listening is something that writers of all ages need to be able to do. As writers, student writers--and aren't we all student writers?--it's a good exercise just to close our eyes and make a mental catalog of what we hear.

Another good exercise is to keep our eyes open and imagine stories. What about the couple? Where are they going? Where have they been? What are they saying to each other? What do they want to happen in the next two hours? What would that dog tied to the park bench say, if it could talk. What kind of a voice would it have? And the tree. What is going on in the tree that we can't see? What would we like to imagine is going on?

I hope, as a celebration of tomorrow, Winter Solstice, we all have time to give ourselves the light of one story idea, one piece of writing, one good word.