Seasons of a Reading Life
Leaning into our natural rhythms for creativity
by Melissa Woodruff
As we step into a new spring season, equally excited about warm sunny days and the dreaded green layer on literally everything, I have been thinking a lot about how the different seasons affect us.
Do you have special seasonal re-reads? I feel like a number of my bookish friends talk about certain books they read every fall or every spring. I, myself, have noticed a draw toward certain books to revisit with my kids as soon as the birds come back home for the spring or the frost starts showing up in the fall. Some stories speak to the spring, summer, fall, or winter in my soul. What about a season of the year when you find yourself more drawn to creativity? Is there a certain season that you read more or write more? I think that is incredibly intentional in our very design.
About a year ago, a friend and I got into a super interesting conversation about how seasons of the year can affect our output. I had noticed that certain times of the year, I got so excited about productivity and organization. I wanted to bake all the loaves of bread and have the biggest garden and can all the goodies. Then, other times of year, I felt more drawn to sitting in reflection and sharing my home with my community. These are times when my writing seemed to really take off. I found myself aching to pour out words to all the stories that popped into my mind. Then, times when I went stretches of weeks or months without writing at all.
Through this conversation, my friend led me to some research (that I couldn’t find immediately when writing this piece but there has been a lot of available research on this) that revolves around human cadences that we aren’t even aware of. This research talked about how our bodies are wired to flow with the seasons.
This research talked about how spring is often associated with renewal and growth. Summer is a season of exploration and adventure. Autumn is a time of harvest and reflection. Winter draws us into a time of introspection and hibernation. In thinking of my own natural rhythms, the ones I don’t even have to work for but that I naturally fall into, I could see all of these (especially hibernation).
As I considered this, my thoughts turned to the question: how could we lean into these seasons, where our minds and bodies instinctively lean towards productive or introspective tendencies, to feed our creativity, or even just care better for ourselves?
In the spring, I always find myself feeling excited and full of anticipation as everything around me seems to be waking up and embarking on all types of newness. I find it a time to lean into new ideas and ask new questions. What have I mulled over slowly in the past few months that I might be ready to let out and grow into a fully fleshed-out plot? I fill pages and pages of notebooks with new ideas, character notes, or the building up of older ideas. This is also a time where I like to clean things up and organize ideas.
In the summer I actually prefer to take in more stories. I love a good summer read. I love reading stories of adventure and excitement, just resting in stories. In my productive life, I find myself wanting to revisit and bask in things I did in the spring, specifically gardening. I just love being around the fruits of my labor. This might be a great time for editing work, or beta reading for friends, or maybe sharing my own work with others.
Autumn is when I have the heaviest draw towards writing. I live for a full day of writing sprints in a chilled coffee shop with a warm mug of coffee. I find myself laser-focused on development and execution, taking what I worked on in my planning season and turning it into chapters or scenes that finally come alive. It’s the harvest season of writing.
Winter is often a time for deep dives and revisiting old projects, focusing on polishing and refining. Very often, it is also a time of future planning and preparation, setting long-term goals for future projects. It’s a very introspective time to see all I’ve done and all I still want to do.
I find it so interesting that not only the seasons of the year can really impact our writing, but I think it goes without saying that seasons of life also affect the way we engage with stories. Whether that is a season of nursing a new baby, which means much more sitting and reading. Or it may be a season of physical healing where writing helps process all the emotions that go along with that. It may be a time of chasing little humans around, and no reading or writing takes place at all for months on end. It could also be a season of a newly emptied nest and more time and quiet than you ever imagined to read and write for days on end without interruption.
I think the knowledge that can come with how our minds and bodies engage with stories and storytelling can be a tool we can use to drive our intake and output more intentionally. I think it also gives us grace to be ok in the seasons where our intake or output isn’t quite what we want it to be. It’s important to just be where we are, gaining new life and new experiences so that when our next season comes, we can use what we gained from the last season to move forward. All seasons are a gift and have such intentional purpose.
There’s such a kindness from our Father in his design of our minds, and the seasons, the days, and all the natural rhythms that give birth to creativity of all kinds. The interplay between the literal seasons of the year and the seasons of life creates such a rich tapestry that influences our reading and writing. Each season, whether defined by the weather or our own life circumstances, offers a unique opportunity to engage with storytelling in a way that enriches our understanding of Father, ourselves, and the world around us.
April 15, 2025 - Release of poetry collection by Kelly Belmonte, Mother of All Words
June 2025 - Release of mystery novel for older readers by Katherine Ladny Mitchell, Not to Be
July 18–20, 2025 - Bandersnatch at the Realm Makers Expo in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Learn more.
Fall 2025 - Release of middle grade fantasy novel by Glenn McCarty, The Song of the Stone Tiger
Fall 2025 - Release of illustrated children’s poetry anthology, I’ve Got a Bad Case of Poetry - Preorder on the Kickstarter Platform
November 2025 - Release of lower middle-grade novel by Mary Barrows, Joe the Fourth and the King’s Crown
Kelly D. Belmonte’s collection of poetry is her "attempt to wrestle with and rest with the beautiful and the broken in this world."
Preorders are open, and if you preorder, the collection will wing its way to you before release day, April 15!
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Then soft the Spring wind whispered,
and fresh the droplets blew:
I am this acre’s gardener,
but He makes all things new.
From “The Rain Came Softly”
in Beyond Chittering Cottage: Poems of Place by Rachel S. Donahue
