Setting the setting: Water colors

Hi friends of reading and writing,

Do you enjoy the setting details in reading or do you skip over them?  I've heard both from friends who read a lot.  I enjoy setting details myself, so I can go over the top in writing about them.  I have to remind myself about music, films, other good time markers, but when it comes to water, I can write a book on that alone.

Watching water is one of my favorite mind-regenerating activities.  It looks remarkably like doing nothing, I admit that.  But the colors change, reflect the sky's moods, show more or less reflection of the shore depending on the wind and current and the sun's position.  And the water can be its own color.  I posted a photo of a great blue heron at Newport Back Bay on FB.  People liked it, commented on their experiences with this bird.  Since I'm writing about North Carolina's lowland rivers and swamps, I said that for my setting in current writing, the water should be tes-brown or black.  Shiny like coal, great at reflecting egrets but great at hiding herons.  I just hope that the color of water means something to my readers someday.  It means a lot to my protagonist, Holly McLain, growing up into an environmental activist in North Carolina, then California.

What do you feel about settings in your writing and in your reading?

cheers,
Laura

Harvest Moon Dreams

Hi readers and writers,

I have always been fascinated with the harvest moon, especially with how big it looks.  I know we're supposed to think the huge size is an optical illusion nowadays, but I must say I am not really convinced that some trick of resonance with golden pumpkins and ripe corn doesn't inflate its image as seen by earthlings during harvest season.  Or warm air cooling, or something.

Every year, I feel a pull from that moon, a need to go outside and look at its shape and whatever I can see of its mottled surface.  I love its yellower-than-usual color and how it seems to hang right over the tops of the trees, brushing them with bright moonlight.   I'm sorry to say Halloween was not a favorite holiday when I was a kid, being too closely associated with Twilight Zone and similar fantasies, but the moon made the season worthwhile.  I kept sketches of its shape every night during October most years.

Today, it's hard to remember there IS a moon, we are so insulated.  But moonlight sneaks around the curtains and stripes the blue bedroom rug, and I have to go and look.  Is it round?  Gibbous?  Waxing or waning?  When does it rise and set each night?  You do realize (or maybe not) that rising/setting times change a lot each day?  If you're not a moon-watcher, give it a try this season.  It will pull you in.

cheers,
Lorelei