The Writers Reverie Archives

The Christmas Pine: Pondering These Things in My Heart By Kathryn Ross

The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious.
Isaiah 60:13

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Christmas past

I remember when Daddy brought home the Christmas tree each year. In those days, we’d never think of using a fake tree. We weren’t quite into the trendy silver trees with revolving multi-colored lights, either.

No. Mom and Dad would only have a real tree!

Two weeks before Christmas we’d head to the tree lot and choose a nice full pine in just the right shape. Dad trimmed the base, dragged it through the front door into the living room, and secured it in the tree holder.

We had to wait for the lights to be strung and each bulb tested. But soon, we could begin opening all the ornament boxes and set to tree-trimming. We gently placed three or four silvery icicles on the branches and spaced out the colorful glass bulbs and home-made ornaments. Daddy made sure the tree-topper angel was in place. Together, as a family, we stood back to assess our festive work.

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The beauty of this glorious work of nature, strung with man-made embellishments, immediately transformed the house. It cast a warm, restful glow throughout the living room—and our hearts. The pine scent’s restorative qualities alleviated stress and anxiety as it deodorized and freshened the entire house. With a deep breath, my whole body seemed rejuvenated and overflowing with a sense of great joy.

Our anticipation for Christmas Day increased as each morning passed with the comforting sight and scent of our wonderous Christmas tree. Mother kept it well-watered and checked the branches to be sure the greenery remained supple and soft. Tiny green needles peppering the carpet were easily removed with a daily vacuuming.

My favorite time to sit with the tree was in the evening. I’d turn all the lights off except for the glow of the bulbs on the tree. My once familiar home seemed entirely changed and beautified by its presence. Sitting in a chair facing the tree, breathing deep the healing properties of pine, and snuggling with my blanket or cat, the peace of the season permeated the sanctuary.

In these early days of my writing career, Christmas and its celebratory elements inspired me to wax poetic on the glory of the season. I still have my little green composition book from my childhood with neatly hand-written poems and short stories. Stirred by the delight, beauty, and sacred nature of mystery and wonder I felt deep inside, my words seemed to bubble forth from my spirit, ignited by His Spirit.   Not that I understood such a truth then. In matured hindsight, I know these things now. I treasure them—as Mary—pondering them in my heart.

Christmas Present

I expect this is why the Hallmark Channel, in recent years, has become so popular with their nostalgic, romantic, guilty-pleasure Christmas movies we all love to joke about and binge watch—savoring every sappy moment of them. Their writers employ predictable cliché plots, lines, settings, and characters, and we don’t try to edit them. Only at Christmas could they get away with this, and we are happy to let them do so.

We all want to live in Hallmark Christmas villages with every small-town pleasure in kith and kin. Hallmark writers have tapped into a shared sense of wonder that Christmas bestows on young and old. But perhaps what they’ve tapped into is more akin to hunger—for the innocent, childlike, simple joys that Christmas awakens in our humanity. That restorative quality Christmas brings with it. We never want it to end.

I never want Christmas to end. Or my tree to leave.

But as in Christmases past, time marches on. Year after year, the big day comes and goes—followed by a week of family visiting. We see everyone’s trees and gifts—aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. They pay a call to our home, too. Parties. Shopping. And counting the days before a new year supplants the old, and our Christmas respite is packed up in boxes until next time.

On New Year’s Day, the tree, which has brought us so much joy, is dismantled and removed to the trash pile, awaiting the garbage truck and its ultimate destination in the dump.

A sorrowful melancholy washes over me when I see disposed Christmas trees abandoned by the side of the road.

Even so, the pine scent lingers, and random needles might be stumbled upon in forgotten corners of the room in ensuing months. I may pause before vacuuming them up and cherish a transporting moment when I mentally return to my sanctuary in the glow of a glorious Christmas tree.

I’m glad we have seasons. There is a comfort in the repetition of precious moments throughout our lives. We hope that when Christmas comes around each year, we are grown a bit wiser and more able to appreciate the glory and beauty of the day. We hope we can better capture it in words on paper that may only ever be read by its writer—and the loving God Who so generously inspires our words with His Word made Flesh, dwelling among us.

Under the glow of the Christmas pine, I’m reading. I’m writing. I’m pondering things in my heart. Deep things shared with my Savior. I remember His birth and the beautification of the pine tree trimmed in lights and ornament remnants of lives lived from year to year.

A tree that was planted purposely for this job. Lived its allotted number of years. Was chopped down, to die. And then raised up in my home, alive again in a more glorious manner than before, transforming the entire atmosphere of my home with a newness of life.

It is a metaphor of Jesus Christ—His birth, life, death, resurrection, and the transformed life He lives in the home of my heart. Like the healing scent of pine, He vanquishes stress and anxiety, deodorizes and freshens the atmosphere of my life—beautifying the place of my sanctuary—and rejuvenates me with an overflowing sense of great joy, a glorious place for His feet to rest.

Be ye blessed this Christmas as you ponder—and write—about these truths in your own life.

clove, lemon oil, cinnamon, garden, harvestwriters, spice, fall recipes, editors, healing, manuscript — The Write Spice: Writing Tips for Flavorful Words By Kathryn Ross

Writer-speaker, Kathryn Ross, ignites a love of literature and learning through Pageant Wagon Publishing. She writes and publishes homeschool enrichment and Christian living books for home, church, and school. In addition, she shepherds writers through the steps book development and production. Her passion to equip women and families in developing a Family Literacy Lifestyle, produces readers and thinkers who can engage the world from a biblical worldview. She blogs and podcasts at TheWritersReverie.com and PageantWagonPublishing.com. Connect with Miss Kathy on Facebook.

Sage: Get Under the Skin of Your Story by Kathryn Ross

Turkey time!

Have you brought home the bird yet? We’ve just about reached our “free” turkey with earned points from our grocery receipts at the local market. We’ll bring home a frozen 20 pounder and wrestle with it in the sink to rinse, clean out the innards, season and plop in a roasting pan with pats of butter slathered over it.

Hours later, the house smells amazing and our tummies rumble with anticipation for succulent gobble-ready slices on our plate, the traditional companion to stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce.

This year, though, I’m considering the addition of a leafy twist for added substance and spice in my turkey prep. Not that my old stand-by recipe of garlic salt, pepper, and butter isn’t enough. But with the sliding of sage leaves between the skin and meat, greater potential for lip smacking satisfaction is released as the efficacy of the herb permeates the bird with flavor.

Though primarily used today in the kitchen, sage, a member of the mint family, had been used for thousands of years in the sick room. Greeks and Romans discovered its medicinal qualities in the curing of snake bites, as well as a tonic for colds, fever, constipation, and even seizures. Add to that its effective uses promoting hair growth and whiter teeth, sage has lived up to its Latin name, salvia—meaning, to save—for centuries.

Why should a man die who has sage in his garden? Ancient Proverb

When it comes to the strong, spicy flavor of sage, a little goes a long way. Use dry sage leaves sparingly to add import to poultry, pork, and beef. Steep sage tea for a battery of health benefits. Tie dried leaves together and burn them, releasing a cleansing smoke to change the ionic composition of the air, which can reduce stress and improve energy.

In considering how to add sage to my turkey, tea, and tonics, I wonder what the equivalent of a sage injection into my writing might produce.

Sage is defined as a plant, we know, but the word is also defined as wisdom in discernment and prudence. If my writing is so flavored, I know I am prepping my words with greater substance to draw out the full potential of my work for better efficacy upon my readers.

Good writers are wise writers. They act the part of a sage injecting words of health and wellness into their work—like sliding those sage leaves between the turkey’s skin and meat in key places. Sage-spicy words of substance permeate the whole manuscript with greater reader impact, producing sticky stories for lasting satisfaction.

I’ve read many books—fiction and non-fiction—that left me unsatisfied and disappointed because they did not explore their topic deeply enough. The lack of permeated flavor made the book easy to forget and of no effect on my life or thinking at all.

The Christian writer must pen words that are sage—salvia, lifesaving—whether it’s in a romance novel or a treatise on a biblical principle, chapter and verse. Don’t just season the surface. Get under the skin of the story and develop deep themes for a truly satisfying, memorable, and possibly life altering read.

Apply this sage advice to develop the full potential of your work. Wrestle with your turkey, so to speak. Cleanse it. Rip out the innards that need to be tossed. Revise and edit your work, slipping in wisdom and discernment between the lines like sage leaves between the skin and meat. In this way, you’ll draw out the fullest potential of your work and distinguish yourself, not just as a storyteller who entertains, but a sage who brings lasting health to hearts and minds.

Journal Prompt: What is the thematic-virtue story you want to tell with your current manuscript? Does it reflect biblical values, discernment, and prudence? What sage injections between the lines of plot and dialogue should you add? What depth of meaning and purpose can you draw out to produce a healthful, lasting impression upon your reader?

Balancing Written Words to Taste for Flavorful Influence By Kathryn Ross

Welcome back Kathryn Ross! Balancing Written Words to Taste for Flavorful Influence is the next in her series — The Write Spice: Writing Tips for Flavorful Words. From sweet to sour, salty to savory, and a tad of bitterness in between, well-seasoned stories touch readers’ taste buds with memorable flavors and healthful influence.

When you write, do you think how your words will taste in the mind and heart of a reader? Will it be winsome and compelling, inviting eager eyes to read further on, hungry for more? Or, will it be repellant and unconvincing, disgusting and dulling to your reader’s sensibilities?

Benefits

Like a sumptuous meal of many courses and flavors, your writing possesses the most healthful benefits with a balance of tastes. The old adage, “variety is the spice of life,” applies to written works, too.

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Human taste-buds are highly charged nerve endings on the tip of the tongue, uniquely designed to identify five basic tastes categorized as either aversive or appetitive. For instance, sweet tastes clue our bodies into energy-rich foods as sure as bitterness warns the body of possible poison.

Unless you’re a coffee or cocoa lover, bitter flavors that often elicit a sweet response.

Five Taste Senses

There are five taste senses that bode benefit or harm regarding foods, much like the words we choose in our storytelling. Whether we’re crafting a fictional tale or non-fiction essay on crucial topics, the words we use must be garnished with “the write spice.” Sprinkle your words generously with these four tastes:

Sweetness is the taste commonly associated with sugar. It is a pleasant taste that can energize and delight in measured doses, but also cause illness in excess. How you add sugar to your story, in wise amounts, evenly distributed—with an extra dollop on top at the end—will determine the satisfaction of the story, leaving its reader lifted and smiling.

Sourness in taste is a clue to the acidity of a thing. Perhaps this is best used in smaller doses. Though youngsters gravitate to the shocking sour flavor of certain popular candies, sour, well diluted, is best. Consider the sharp pucker of a pungent lemon slice until squeezed into a tall glass of water where a spritz of sour gives just the right bit of refreshment. So, too, a pungent word or scene can arrest a reader’s attention with a refreshing perspective if mixed well.

Saltiness in foods is what makes the bland turn to bliss on the tongue. Consider how dull any dish is without a dash of salt. Salt levels in processed foods makes them tasty. Salt and sweet together are especially addictive. But, remember—a little dash’il-do-ya. High salt/sodium content in foods makes the heart race and is not healthy. Again, a pinch of salt and a cup of sugar blend brilliantly in baked goods and storytelling.

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Savory flavor is where you’ll find more substance, such as in broths and cooked meats. Our writing should be savory with substance. Say something! Savory tastes are the low notes that add depth and gravy—I mean, gravity—to your work. If we want to provide healthy influence with our words, make the body of your work something a reader wants to savor in their heart and mind—the meat and potatoes of the meal.

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Bitterness in foods may be immediately repulsive and unpleasant, but a bittering agent may be just the nutritional ingredient to make your dish effective. So, too, in your writing, a blob of bitterness stirred into the mix—like unsweetened cocoa powder added to a cake batter—might just surprise you when you taste the finished product. Sometimes a bitter twist in your writing is the unexpected plot element that ultimately sweetens by the end of the story. The surprising flavor keeps your reader engaged until, mixed together with the sweet, sour, salty, and savory, you have a delicious dish that will prompt your reader to ask for second helpings!

Writer-speaker, Kathryn Ross, ignites a love of literature and learning through Pageant Wagon Productions and Publishing. She writes and publishes homeschool enrichment and Christian living books for home, church, and school. Her passion is to equip women and families in developing a Family Literacy Lifestyle, producing readers and thinkers who can engage the world from a biblical worldview.

She blogs and podcasts at TheWritersReverie.com and PageantWagonPublishing.com. Connect with Miss Kathy on Facebook.

Peppermint Bits—Words Spun, Broken and Sweet By Kathryn Ross

Welcome Kathryn Ross to Thyme for Writers. Peppermint Bits — Words Spun, Broken and Sweet is Kathryn’s third in the The Write Spice: Writing Tips for Flavorful Words series! What better way to bring in the Christmas season than with Kathryn’s words of wisdom…

Like a good book, the sense of smell possesses the power to whisk a person into another time and place.

Memories

Memory connects a life experience stored in the brain to our senses, ready to unleash it upon our being should we come in contact with that particular sense trigger again. We flood with remembrance as nostalgia works a spa-like treatment upon our hearts—if the memories are sweet.

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By Kathryn Ross

Christmas may come but once a year, yet when I smell pine and peppermint in July, I have a momentary urge to string lights and plug A Charlie Brown Christmas into the DVD player while consuming sweetness in a cup of hot chocolate stirred with the red and white swirl of a fragrant peppermint candy cane.

But, what if the scents that stir us connect to less than sweet memories? Brokenness. Heart sick moments in our lives we’d rather not return to even in the fleeting imagery of the mind. Sometimes, we don’t want our memories stirred. We don’t want to return to painful moments.

As writers, our words act like the power of scent whisking us to another time and place—both broken and sweet. We stir within our readers either a curse or a blessing. How we balance the ingredients of the words we write and the messages we convey by knowing and targeting a specific audience, determines the value our work is to those we hope to influence.

Powerful vehicles, our senses. Much like trigger words in a story. Swirled together like the red and white of a candy cane, they become effective communication tools for the writer and speaker, spun wisely.

The Blessing Comes through the Broken

In the late 1800s, America was growing with European immigrants from many diverse Western cultures. Christmas was a holiday marked by all, though celebrations differed. One thing many did hold in common from the Old World was to see the pig as a symbol of good health and prosperity—something all families hoped for as the new year approached. A candy maker in Saratoga Springs, New York created a unique trinket, to bolster his sales, built on this commonality. He mixed sugar and peppermint into a bright pink concoction and poured it into small molds of a pig. Then, cleverly, he packaged it with a cloth bag, a little metal hammer, and directions for instituting a new family Christmas tradition. After the meal on Christmas day, the pig was placed into the cloth bag and hammered to broken bits. Emptying the bag onto the table, chucks of fragrant peppermint candy poured out—enough for everyone to eat and enjoy,making memories bathed in the scent of peppermint and a wish for good health and prosperity in the new year. Only in brokenness came the blessing.

The Sweetness Comes through Consumption

The scent of peppermint has long been connected to Christmas celebrations. As far back as the 1670s in Germany, folkore tells us about the choirmaster petitioning a candy maker to come up with a sugar stick to keep noisy children silent in the solemn part of their worship service. The clever candy maker designed the peppermint flavored candy cane we still use today in the shape of a shepherd’s crook. He swirled the sugar mixture with red and white colors in remembrance of the blood of Jesus shed to make us all whiter than snow. Story spun with tangible stimulants for the senses spoke directly to the youthful audience it was meant to still, as they consumed the sweet. Sticky and forever connected to Christmas, we consume tons of peppermint candy cane confections each year. Only in consumption comes the sweet.

As a writer, I compose my most effective words from a place of brokenness because of the bitter, and the consumption of a sweet remedy discovered. Memories I prefer to tuck away must be stirred to the surface to remember well the sour moments in time, so I might write the way to find the sweet blessing there. For me. For my readers.

Scent, like words, heal. Medicinally, peppermint oil is used to invigorate the mind and senses. It tingles the skin with coolness, aids digestion, comforts stomach upset, and washes over one with an inspiring a sense of peace.

Do the words you write and speak do the same? Are they flavored to draw to the surface bitter things and so heal with the sweet? How can you add a dose of peppermint to your work and minister peace to your readers?

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When Cinnamon Bark Editors Bite
By Kathryn Ross

Writer, speaker, teacher, and enrichment artist, Kathryn Ross, sweeps readers into the story-worlds of Jane Austen, C. S. Lewis, Hannah Hurnard, Marguerite de Angeli, John Bunyan, and others, exploring powerful truths to fulfilling God’s plan for your life in her latest publication, The Gatekeeper’s Key. Discern your place and season, with encouragement to see purpose in boundaries, find comfort in trials, and gain fortitude in going forth. Short story, personal testimony, excerpts from classic literature, visual imagery, challenge questions for discussion, and journal prompts for writing assignments draw you before the Gatekeeper. It’s quite a journey—but you’re never alone. Always in His Presence, with an Invitation, a Gatekeeper, and a Key. Perhaps more than one. Purchase on Amazon or direct from Pageant Wagon Publishing.

The Clove Principle: Puncture Your Writing with Warmth By Kathryn Ross

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The Clove Principle: Puncture Your Writing with Warmth by Kathryn Ross

In Thyme for Writers, The Clove Principle: Puncture Your Writing with Warmth is the second in the The Write Spice: Writing Tips for Flavorful Words series by Kathryn Ross.

Thanksgiving

The pantry, fragrant in Thanksgiving spices, overflows with all the ingredients for holiday baking. Not the least of which are the cloves necessary for flavor-filled pumpkin pie, succulent hams, and first aid should the need arise.

In fact, with diets thrown out the window in the season of family feasts and horn-o-plenty holiday entertaining, a bit of clove oil on hand, rubbed on the tummy, aids digestion and stomach upset when over-eating overtakes the merry-maker at the dinner table.

The chill in the air outside impels us to seek warm things, and clove is the spice to warm traditional dishes this time of year, as well as symbolically impart the inviting fervor of affection in gift-giving.

Victorian Times

In Victorian times, the simplicity of homemade gifts from the kitchen or treasures crafted by hand found a warm welcome. Popular gifts were aromatic pomanders made of tiny, stick-like, brown floral cloves inserted into an orange, like beads studded on a ball ornament for a tree. They, too, hung by a ribbon or nestled in a bowl, releasing the citrus scent of the fruit, mingled with the clove’s own pungent passion. A room enhanced by such fragrance stimulated the human senses, mind, and heart, inviting intimacy.

Puncture your writing with clove to inject warmth and the fragrance of human emotion into your descriptive writing.

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By Kathryn Ross

When I write my first drafts, I’m more concerned with laying out the meat and potatoes of the work without garnished language. Facts must be represented accurately if I’m writing non-fiction; the scene must be played out if I’m writing fiction. Technical language in early drafts, though properly in place, often lack the visceral quality necessary to arrest the senses of the reader and inflame heart and mind with the story material. The select insertion of spicy words help draw out the full flavor of a manuscript.

Use the thesaurus tool in your writing program to locate quality words:

Keep the thesaurus window open throughout a writing project to have ready access.
Find descriptive words that connect to one or more of the five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch) to engage gut responses from your reader.
Don’t overuse words—one evocative and intimate descriptor can do the job more efficiently than a handful of mediocre modifiers.

Clove adds stimulating, warm flavors to the traditional Thanksgiving menu fare, as it aids digestion when eating generous portions. Help your reader better digest your inviting words by applying The Clove Principle to your manuscripts.

Christmas past

Christmas Present

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Benefits

Five Taste Senses

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Memories

The Blessing Comes through the Broken

The Sweetness Comes through Consumption

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Thanksgiving

Victorian Times

Puncture your writing with clove to inject warmth and the fragrance of human emotion into your descriptive writing.

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