Month: September 2022

Nights of the Full Moon as Writing Inspiration

nights of the full moon as writing inspiration

Some of my favorite experiences in nature occurred on clear nights with a full moon. If you haven’t been out on a night like that, with no artificial light nearby, I highly recommend finding an opportunity to do so. Artificial lights dampen or kill the wonders of a full moonlight and your ability to use nights of the full moon as writing inspiration.

Since we live in the county, I’ve had chances to venture out in these nights bathed in moonlight. What catches my attention first are the shadows. The moonlight is so strong it casts shadows. The second thing I notice is how far I can see. On typical nights, the woods that line the edge of our property are just a wall of darkness. Under the full moon, I can pick out details. And then I become fascinated with the color. Silver is the best way to describe it. It illuminates but very differently from sunlight, so I can see but not quite.

“Not quite” sums up a full moon night. I can see better than a normal night, but not quite like in the daytime. My yard is recognizably familiar but not quite the same in the silver light.

I had the wonderful blessing to see the ocean under a full moon. As well as casting our shadows across the sand, the moonlight transformed the waves into rippling sheets of metal. They appeared solid as the hit the shore. That experience was so intense that God used it to lift me from a four-month depression.

So what stories are appropriate for this “not quite” setting? The strangeness of it should be a backdrop for a wonderfully positive scene or a horribly negative one. It can’t be the setting for run-of-the-mill action.

The climax of my Christmas mystery, “A Rose from the Ashes”, is set on Christmas Eve under an almost full moon. I had to use an almost full moon because the last recent occurrence of a full moon on Christmas Eve didn’t line up with the timeline of my series–I’m fussy about my timelines. But I wanted to use the magic of moonlight to set the scene and hint that something extraordinary was about to happen to the main character.

As much as I enjoy moonlight, I can see how it can be unsettling and even sinister to people because of it’s ability to be a weird imitation of day. One of my favorite picture books, The Magic Wood, begins with an illustration of a boy sitting under a full moon. He heads into the dark woods and mets a creature who at first is disturbing and then turns dreadful. For a positive approach, read Chapter 22 “The Story of the Trial of El-ahrairah” from Watership Down by Richard Adams.

For more posts on writing about nature, click here.

How would you use or where have you read about using nights of the full moon was writing inspiration?

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Prompt for Fall Haiku

prompt for fall haiku

Since my theme is nature this month, I have to have a haiku prompt, and since it’s September, what could be better than a prompt for fall haiku? I wrote the poem below a few years ago. Fall may still be my favorite season, but my taste seems to be changing. Spring and summer have been garnering more of my affection lately. But fall still brings the best weather to the Buckeye State.

Crisp–the word for fall.

Ripe apples, dry leaves, sharp winds

That hint of winter.

JPC Allen

Please leave your fall haiku in the comment below.

For more nature posts, click here.

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Seasons of Color

seasons of color

Welcome to Kristena Mears, a new guest blogger here at JPC Allen Writes! With fall just around the corner, Kristena writes about the seasons of color and encourages writers to take advantage of colors in their writings.

September is here and with it comes the changing of the seasons. I was never an autumn lover as a child. It signaled the end of summer and the end of fun. Summer had passed and school was back in session. 

I grew up in Northern California. The change of season from summer to autumn didn’t have the beauty I see now in the Mid-West. There are so many colors here in just one leaf. Both areas had the autumn season, both had leaves that turned brown and fall off. In both, flowers die away with the frost. But the colors were different, and this changed the whole flavor of the season.

In the Mid-West, the leaves don’t just turn brown; they turn to crimson, then maroon, then turn into caramel. The dying flowers turn from hot pink to fandango before turning to russet, then ash.

I didn’t appreciate it, but even the slow fade of the seasons in California has worked its way into my writing. Not every scene I write needs these multi-colored descriptions. But it is those that need them I want to focus on today.

When we write, we want to draw our readers in. We want to make them feel the brush of wind blowing through their hair, and feel the need to scratch their arm as we describe the ant crawling its way up over each tiny hair. To do this, we need to draw from each experience and infuse that knowledge into our work. What we see around us, what we feel and experience, these are the images that we put to paper. Both the beauty and the shriveling ugliness.

Then again, is it really ugly? Even the dull and ugly can become beautiful in our words.

Have you ever asked yourself how many colors there are? There are over 18 decillion. Decillion! I didn’t even know that was a number! That’s a one with thirty-three zeros after it.

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Scientists have determined that we can see about one thousand different levels of just dark and light and one-hundred levels each of green and red. That’s about ten-million colors just with those two spectrums.

Are we using this kind of description in our writing? When we talk about the evening sky, do we take advantage of all the colors available to us? We can say, 
“The reds and golds blended together and slowly faded to black.” 
Or we can say, 
“Crimson swirled with ruby and violet, painting the sky in beauty, before fading into a smoky gray that was swallowed into charcoal.”

When we write, we have many colors to choose from. We don’t need to go overboard and use a distinct color for everything. Sometimes a red gingham dress, or a faded pair of blue jeans, is just a red gingham dress, and a faded pair of blue jean. But variation of color seems to be especially necessary when we are describing nature and seasons. When we describe the colors in the sky, the mountains or forest, we need to convey the beauty of what we want to reveal to our readers, tingle their senses and transport them into the pages.

I know it takes extra effort for me and it never seems to make it into my first draft. But the effort is worth the outcome. Using descriptive wording is the difference between good writing and great writing. God created amazing splendor for us to enjoy. Each season and each part of the world has its own unique magnificence. There are days and places that seem dull. But even the rainy, overcast days and the bleak wastelands have their own distinctive colors. The words we choose can make them extraordinary and leave our readers hungering for more. 

For more posts on writing about nature, click here.

*****

BUY AT AMAZON

Today it happened. Keturah became a woman. Her plan to escape an arranged marriage worked. She’s now free to find her brother and live as she chooses. But the lies and deceit catch up with her. If she confesses, will it lead to her death? Is there a path to forgiveness? 
Justus’ devotion to Yeshua results in Abba proclaiming him dead to the family. When Justus rescues a child from slavery, Keturah falls in love with the toddler. But the child’s mother returns, and Justus falls in love. Will Keturah’s jealousy destroy all bonds with her brother? Can they save their relationship?Onesimus, a runaway slave, has a secret. Befriending Keturah, he finds she has a secret of her own. Will the two friends be destroyed by what they hide, or can they learn to give everything to God?
Will running set them free or sentence them to death?

*****

Kristena Mears is an award-winning author, blogger and wife of a C&MA minister. She is an inspirational speaker for both small and large groups of all ages. Kristena is a self-proclaimed coffee connoisseur. She loves history, art, travel, and even research. Out of these, her vivid imagination and inspiring stories flow.
When Kristena’s not busy writing or working her full-time job, you’ll probably find her nose in a book or spending time with her husband and best friend, Mark. She takes frequent trips to the zoo. enjoys cooking and dabbling in photography. Kristena lives in the Cincinnati, OH area with her hubby of 40 years. She has three grown children and three grandchildren.
You can find her books on Amazon or wherever books are sold. 
For more information on Kristena Mears, check out her website, kristenamears.com .

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Write from an Animal’s Viewpoint

write from an animal's viewpoint

My theme this month is nature, so my first prompt is to challenge you to write from an animal’s viewpoint. One of my favorite novels Watership Down is about the epic struggle of a group of rabbits in England as they establish a new warren. It’s fascinating to read how author Richard Adams imagined the rabbits’ views of humans. For example, one of the rabbits says he avoided a straight line of woods because straight things are often made by people. I’d never thought of that before, but it’s true.

From what animal’s viewpoint would you write? I’d love to read your inspiration!

For more nature prompts, click here.

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God’s Nature in Our Writing

God's nature in our writing

Kicking off a new month with a new theme and a new author. Please welcome Penny Frost McGinnis, a who published her first novel with Mt. Zion Ridge Press this year. My theme this month is nature, and Penny gets us rolling with this lovely article about including God’s nature in our writing.

“To the attentive eye, each season of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which will never be seen again.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Growing up, I spent my time wandering through the woods and fields that surrounded our home. In the pond, I discovered frogs who plopped in the water, dragonflies which glided like kites, and red-winged blackbirds who hid among the cattails. We snatched heads of clover and sucked the sweetness from the tiny blooms and rolled down hills of grass. In the woods, I found toadstools and jack-in-the-pulpit. To me, nature came to life, as if another character inhabited the world I lived in.

As I grew older and learned more about God’s glorious creation, I embraced nature as a way to honor the Lord. When my husband and I visit Lake Erie, I like nothing better than to sit on a rock and hear the waves lap the shore. The mountains of South Carolina take my breath away, when the fog rises and reveals a sunrise displayed in yellow, red, and pink. Standing on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean as the chilled water washes over my feet reminds me of the power and beauty God has gifted us.

Because I experience deep joy when I commune with the natural world, I believe it’s essential to include the beauty God created in my writing. In my devotions, I often focus on one aspect, such as a flower garden and the process of growing from seed to bloom to emulate the growth in the Christian life. When I write fiction, I often set the scene with sights, sounds, smells, the taste, or touch of an element of nature. 

In my work-in-progress, the main character, Marigold, owns a kayak business, so many of the scenes are set on the beach. Rather than give a lengthy description, I sprinkle nature throughout the chapters. For instance: “The scent of spring rain refreshed the air. Most days, she loved when the skies opened and doused her flowers, but today she prayed the sun shined through the clouds so vacationers would paddle in Lake Erie on the sturdy plastic boats.” And “The trees along the campground waved, as the wind whipped. Waves rolled in to the shore, higher each time. ‘The way the water is acting tells me a storm is brewing. Did you see the red sky this morning?’” 

I enjoy reading books set on the east coast or in the Appalachian Mountains where the writer immerses the reader into the natural setting by description and through dialogue. As I write a scene, I picture where my character is, then I discover how I can add nature through the five senses. The character may smell the damp ground in the forest or the rose in the garden. They might taste the tomato they plucked from the vine, or hear the rushing water in the river. They might roll a snowball, rub their hand over the bark of a tree, or capture a handful of sand and let it flow from their fingers. Sight is the most used sense in writing, when the character witnesses a glorious sunset or hikes in the woods and discovers a baby barred owl on the ground. 

Readers of book one of the Abbott Island series, Home Where She Belongs, said: The details and descriptions made me feel like I was on the island. Use nature to immerse the reader in the setting by sprinkling description throughout the narrative and dialogue, and weave in all five senses so the reader experiences the nature in each scene. 

For more post on writing about nature, click here.

*****

BUY AT AMAZON

Tired of being a pawn for her father and an emotional punching bag for her ex-boyfriend, Sadie Stewart escapes to Abbott Island where she spent summers with her grandparents. Would the love and faith she learned from them be enough to fuel her new life? She wants to believe God’s promises, yet broken trust holds her back. 

Joel Grayson left the island long enough to train at the Police Academy. The community trusts him, even though he’s failed. When he finds Sadie at her grandparents’ cottages, his heart skips a beat. He’d love to get to know her again, but no one needs to share the hurt he harbors. 

When Sadie discovers someone is sabotaging her future, she seeks Joel’s help. As they are drawn together, will Joel let down his guard and let her in? Will Sadie trust the man who loves her and the Father Who cares? 

*****

If Penny Frost McGinnis could live in a lighthouse or on an island, she would. Instead, she and her husband are content to live in southwest Ohio and visit Lake Erie every chance they get. She adores her family and dog, indulges in dark chocolate, enjoys creating fiber arts, and grows flowers and herbs in her tiny garden. She pens romance with a dash of mystery and the promise of hope. Her life’s goal is to encourage and uplift through her writing. Connect with her on website/blog, FB author page, Twitter, Pinterest, and Bookbub.

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