guest post by Canan Yetmen
I read once that a person’s favorite season tends to follow their least favorite one. In my day writing job, I have an annual deadline in the early fall, which means I spend the second half of the summer (the really bad half) at my desk, head down, trying to ignore the world. It works out well because I’m not a fan of summer and all its trappings (yeah I said it) so it’s just better if I have a demanding taskmaster to keep me occupied. My reward for this hibernation is the October emergence, when I step out into the slanted fall light, slightly more humane temperatures, and the wide open possibilities of having time to write what I want.
As Georgia O’Keeffe said, “I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.”
She lived in the Texas Panhandle for two years. She knows.
In reality, Texas fall is whatever we can make of it. It starts much later than it should and lasts hardly any time at all. I am a melancholic person by nature, so naturally, fall – or at least the concept of fall – is my jam. I love knowing that we are inexorably heading into the quiet and proverbial death of winter. The shortening days, the crispy leaves, the scent of a simmering soup all guide this threshold that prepares our bodies and minds for the next phase. We invite ghosts to the party, costume ourselves into other incarnations, and tell spooky stories to accompany this general sense of darkening.
The passage of time is palpable, and the season’s energetic force propels things through unseeable doorways.
Summer sits on a beach and stares at the horizon while fall blows the leaves from the trees and reminds us the clock is ticking.
Luckily, writing, even in Texas, can conjure the most glorious fall, one with showy leaves, brisk afternoons and wooly scarves that still smell of last year’s piñon wood fires. I find that placing a story within a seasonal shift creates a feeling of change – fall moving into winter, spring melting into summer, summer hanging on too long and refusing to leave. It gives a writer a lot to play with. How do characters react to shorter days, a sudden cold snap, the outing ruined by a storm? What feelings does the weather evoke, and what quirky habits shape their behavior? She won’t eat salads when it gets cold outside. The sound of windshield wipers scraping across sleet-coated glass reminds him of being late for school. She delights in the surprise of an unforecast rain shower; he hates what it does to his hair. Stuff like that.
I like to put my characters into liminal spaces in their lives and, similarly, I think, to set stories in in-between moments in history. The months after the war. The years fighting for justice to be served. In these spaces, characters might rage against their circumstance, cower in fear, or move tentatively. Maybe they dance or punch the walls while the bigger world does the same. I also gravitate to writing stories about endings and emergence, picking up the pieces and deciding how – or even if – to put them back together.
I love the feeling of not knowing everything but also knowing something very deeply and moving ahead across the threshold anyway.
Of not being one thing or the other, but somewhere in between, trying to get on solid footing for what happens next.
This is probably why mystery is my favorite genre to read and write. Not so much a whodunnit mystery but a how-the-hell-did-that-happen mystery. A moving-into-darkness-and-coming-out-the-other-side mystery. My favorite writing moments are when something happens in a scene and I have no idea why or what happens next. I’ve had moments where a character has told me what their real intentions are after they’ve lied to another character when I didn’t even know they were lying.
I love when a character opens a door without any idea what will be on the other side until they get there and we find out together.
And somehow it will all make sense to both of us in the end. So we take one step, and another, into the mystery, letting leaves crunch under our feet and turning up our collars against the wind. Maybe there’s a ghost, maybe there’s an unexpected rainstorm, maybe someone is making soup. We turn the page and keep going.
Guided Writing: Speaking of Ghosts
“People all over the world know about ghosts. A ghost is international.” — Marvin Cone
“Anniversary” (1938) By Marvin Dorwart Cone (1891-1965)
The artist Marvin Cone had an uncle who terrified him as a child and inspired an entire series of ghost paintings. I love this quote from him, and I love this deeply creepy painting: The way the perspective is slightly askew, the impossibly steep staircase, the weirdly narrow doorway. The hovering international ghost – doing what? And why in God’s name is it titled “Anniversary”?
Take a minute or two to explore the painting, jotting down your thoughts if you like.
Now that we’re familiar with Cone’s ghosts, think about what ghosts tend to appear in your writing. These could be literal spirits of the dead, or they could be thematic whispers of things past. They could be your ghosts or those of a character, or a mix of both! Ponder, make a list, draw a picture – whatever strikes your fancy – for 5 minutes.
Next, consider the liminal space. In Cone’s painting, the ghost waits at the bottom of the stairs, gazing up at what lies ahead. It is a place of in-betweens and not-yets. Set your character in such a space, and watch where they go. Write for 15 minutes.
Circling back to the weather, add some seasonal images and sensory moments to the liminal space you just wrote, or start a new scene altogether. If your character is inside, you may need to get creative, perhaps with a draft, the scent of pine on a coat sleeve, or greasy sunscreen under their nails. Write for 8 minutes.
You’ve done it! If you’re lucky enough to be enjoying some cooler weather, honor it today with a favorite scarf, a bowl of soup, or any way that speaks to you.
Canan Yetmen is an architectural writer by day and historical fiction novelist at dawn. Although she does not enjoy either gardening or hiking, she does love a good internet rabbit hole and has achieved elite levels of procrastination searching for historical details about things like shoelaces and goulash recipes. She has lived in Austin since 1987 and still holds out hope for a glorious fall every year.