A Season For Everything

There's a season for creativity, reflection and rest. I guess I'm just learning that now.

It’s cold today, the first for this August—a sign that in a few short weeks, fall will be upon us. Here, in Alberta, there’s a specific chill that tells you summer will soon be leaving. A shift in the lighting to something a bit sharper, a cooling off overnight that urges you to add another blanket to your bed, a change in the air to something more brisk, something a bit darker. It’s not an abrupt ending, but a slow goodbye, the kind your parents did with their friends/family when you were a child, waiting for them on the porch for an extra 25-45 minutes before heading home.

Here, the only long season is winter. Lasting usually from October until March, give or take, the winter lingers for a long time, refusing to let us go. Spring arrives late, covered in half-frozen garbage and mud-soaked. Summer flashes by in a green rush, and autumn—my favourite—rarely lasts as long as I want it to. Snow barges in too soon, disrupting everything like an uninvited in-law.

Maybe that’s why these past spring and summer months feel especially precious this year. This spring and summer have been productive seasons for me. I’ve completed both a first and second draft of my very first novel, and I’ve written several new poems I’m proud of, some of which have been picked up by literary journals. My first short story was accepted for publication, too, though plenty of rejections have landed alongside it. This year, I even put together a chapbook manuscript of poetry, which I have also sent out for publication…so far, no takers, but that’s okay. I have plans to rework that chapbook anyway.

Photo of my writing desk from when I was working on the second draft of my horror novel.

For once, I’ve leaned fully into the warmer months. I’ve met many new people, participated in many open mics, and been a featured reader at another. Over this past year, I have felt my roots growing into my local writing community, digging deeper and deeper into fertile soil, soaking up the much-needed nutrients my creative writing yearns for. It feels good to be part of something for once, rather than lurking on the edges or watching through a digital screen.

Still, I wrestle with impatience. When I’m not producing, I feel that familiar tug of guilt, as though the work I’ve already done is somehow not enough. I want to write more, publish more, create more, connect more. Rest is supposed to be part of the creative process—I know this. But I resist it, I fight it with bared teeth. I feel like if I don’t press on, I’ll miss some invisible opportunity or worse, prove myself a fraud. My rational mind knows this isn’t true, yet the pressure hums just under my skin all the same.

When I do stop—when I force myself to rest—my return is difficult. It’s like stepping away from a fire, only to find the coals cooled and stubborn when I want them blazing again. Imagination feels harder to summon. Frustration sets in. The familiar inner critic whispers: maybe you were never really a writer at all.

But I’ve begun to understand that this cycle—burst, pause, return—isn’t a bad thing. It’s simply the rhythm of my creative work. Everything takes time. Everything has its own season.

Spring and summer have been seasons of significant growth for me. Perhaps fall will turn me inward, toward self-reflection. While winter may demand stillness and rest. Or maybe it won’t unfold in such a tidy order. Perhaps creativity will arrive in unexpected surges, indifferent to the calendar I try to live by. Either way, I’m learning that there is a season for everything.

My job now is not to control the tides of creativity, but to steer myself within them. To guide my ship without demanding calm seas.

Change is coming—I can feel it already, shimmering in the air like a shiver of anticipation. All I can do is show up (with patience if I can manage it) and keep moving in a direction that feels sustainable. So I add another layer to my back, step outside into late August, and breathe in this strange, shifting air.

Whatever this next season brings, I want to be ready to meet it.