Autumnal Reading and Writing by Allison Symes

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                                       Image Credit: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. 

I love the changing colours of autumn. I get several good workouts raking up leaves outside my home too. This time of year also means curling up with hot chocolate (Options Mint, thanks) and a good book, whether it is a paperback or something on my Kindle. The nights closing in encourages reading. Perhaps it is one of the great consolations of longer evenings. 

Another consolation is preparing my Book Wish List for Christmas. One lovely thing about being a writer is it is so easy to tell your loved ones what you’d like for the festive season. I always want books, pens, notebooks etc. There is no such thing as having too many of these things and it makes me easy to buy for.

Do you choose books to read to match the season? If anything, as the nights draw in, I want to read “light” so I look for humour. It won’t be long before I dig out Terry Pratchett’s wonderful Hogfather again (having enjoyed Reaper Man on audio recently. Okay I was a little late for the harvest season but not by much!). 

Writing wise, the longer evenings encourage me to stay at my desk and get on with it. It is where I am grateful writing is something done indoors. I’m also usually working on festive flash pieces and that’s fun to do. This is about the only seasonal writing I do. Most of my stories and blogs are suitable for all year round usage and I like that given it means I can choose when I’d like to try and place them. 

But there is something fun about festive flash fiction. I’ve had Santa pulled over for speeding in my time and, on another occasion, facing potential disaster when the elves go on strike on Christmas Eve. 

One of my pieces was broadcast on Hannah Kate’s Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM in 2021. Flash works well as an audio format.

I like the idea of autumnal and winter reading bringing cheer. Boy, could we do with more of that. 

Do you read more at this time of year than during the summer months? I do. I suppose we should all be grateful for the invention of (a) books and (b) the electric light!

So what are your thoughts on autumnal reading and writing? Do you find the darker evenings an aid or a hindrance to creativity?

I am taking part in Flash NANO for the first time this year. I’ll be given thirty prompts over thirty days so I hope by the end of this month to have written 30 new flash pieces. December will be spent editing them! 

I’m not planning to get to the 50K word count that NaNoWriMo sets as a target for novelists though I like the idea of having something to aim for. In my case, thirty new stories is my aim and will be keeping me busy enough this autumn.


Comments

Peter Leyland said…
A lot to think about here Allison, it being Xmas approaching and all that. You start with a lovely Autumn picture, a strange time of year when we have images of beauty and desolation mixed. I have just decided on my present request. It will be a biography of poet, John Donne, which has just won the Baillie Gifford prize for non-fiction. As literary non-fiction is my forum, I tend not to have particular writing seasons. It just depends on who wants an article. My latest about African Novels is just being resubmitted with major corrections!

I've just been reading about the intriguing NaNoWriMo on here, and I wish you success with the Flash NANO, another new acronym. Thanks for the post.
18 November 2022 at 11:52
Allison Symes said…
Many thanks, Peter. The Flash NANO is an interesting challenge. My late maternal grandmother loathed autumn. She saw it as the season when everything died. She herself died in the autumn. I see it differently. I do like the idea of it being the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Far more positive!
18 November 2022 at 16:19
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