I have been fortunate to run several nature writing workshops linked to this blog and my novel. Over the next few months I will feature some of the responses from participants and invite any bloggers to join in with a short piece of nature writing in any form or a photograph.

Our aim is to look at how we can be advocates for nature in our writing. Can we write not just about nature from the outside but can we create a voice for nature by observing what is around us, understanding it, noticing the challenges. Can we create presence and also note absence.

Some of the prompts are taken from my novel and I discussed aspects of the process of writing, researching, revising until coming to final edits and publication.

With the opening of Navaselva and the human character I wanted to keep as close to the natural world as possible so my character looks out of a window in a place that is similar to where I live but also imaginary.

My first prompt is ‘Looking Through a Window’.

For me today I am in my home at Navasola and looking through the window onto my favourite view.

I have also been fortunate to always have something natural to look out onto. As a child in a Victorian terrace in London I had a sash window which my black cat came in and out of. In the small yard below my mother had made a garden and there was a lilac tree. This tree showed me the beauty of the seasons changing and somewhere there is a ‘lost’ poem about that tree. Now there is a lilac in front of our house in the Sierra Aracena, Spain.

Other homes I have been in have often had open spaces at the front, like allotments in London or a park in Sheffield. However, there have been places with windows with little to see and a lot to hear in cities. Can the light we get from a window if little else also inspire us to write ? Or make us think about how important natural green spaces are and can improve our well being?

Now the view from my window shows cloudy skies and rain. I wrote a poem describing the moss in the sunshine recently and the other day a poem while watching this spiders web being blown about on top of a salvia plant in flower. There has been a lot of rain and wind and today even more and a severe weather warning. However, there was less rain here than predicted but all are on edge because this is the time of this DANA heavy rainfall from high ocean temperatures. Our thoughts and feeling are with those in Valencia suffering from the sudden and tremendous flooding and loss of life. The ocean temperatures are now much higher than previous years.

Autumn in the Sierra Aracena is particularly beautiful and many people come to visit as there is an ‘exotic’ mix of trees changing colour with others that are always a Mediterranean green, like the olives, cork oaks and holm oaks and some palms in the town of Aracena.

For a visit to Aracena, please visit Restless Jo’s blog. I was very happy to finally meet up with her but not in Aracena, in our other place near Tavira in Portugal.

https://stillrestlessjo.com/2024/11/11/jos-monday-walk-8-go-to-aracena/comment-page-1/#comment-22329

I would also like to draw attention to Margaret21s blog and a recent post on photographs that create silence. Margaret shows her garden and comments that although there is a lot of noise from the birds there is also a stillness.

https://margaret21.com/2024/11/06/silence/

I am interested in that stillness that a natural setting can give and the need there is for this in so many urban settings. In the UK many streets have trees but this can also be contentious because of light, leaves and roots issues. What has happened to our human memory of being a part of nature? Although, most streets with trees tend to carry a higher property value often more disadvantaged areas do not get any trees or enough open green space.

Here is the prompt from the beginning of Navaselva and introducing the character Jay Ro. And yes, she does go on a walk later. This was another way to create a natural setting and some aspects of her thoughts. Choices can be for reality or creating an imaginative character. Or just link a photo of a favourite view.

Extracts from Navaselva, The Call of the Wild Valley, Chapter 1.

Jay Ro was turning over papers on her grandmother’s writing desk, searching for lost stories and the manuscript Nana G had left behind. She went to push the shutters out wide as the sun’s rays were less intense. She stared out onto the rocky western slopes of the valley. The limestone crags jutted out, making strange shapes that hid caves and wild creatures like weasels with ancient histories, weasels on broomsticks, or the weasel from the stories her grandmother told her. Was this drawing the weasel of those childhood stories?…….

Jay Ro stared out of the window again at the forbidden wilder side of the valley. Pines soared up to the sky along a high ridge but with little good soil to anchor them deep to the earth like the trees in the lower valley. She could just see the heavy body of one great pine lying over two boulders with shattered branches all around. A large bird was soaring on the warm air of an Andalusian autumn, its tail angled like a kite. Was this the black kite of Nana G’s African stories? Jay Ro’s glazed eyes went back to the desk. This search for the whole novel Nana G said she had written was not going well. Where could it be? So far, all Jay Ro could find were fragments of her nana’s writing, nature notes, drawings and these openings of different stories. Jay Ro stretched her restless legs. Maybe a walk would help; it was frustrating finding just bits and pieces.

If you would like to join in, choices can be for reality or creating an imaginative character. Or just link a photo of a favourite view.

Leave a link in the comments on any Looking Through a window posts. Can be a photograph, writing or email me a short piece of no more than 500 words,

Looking Through a Window 2 will feature Peter Schweiger, who wanted to be a forester but had to make a living out of his family business. Peter has a passion for trees and has planted many too. He also has an understanding of Quaker values and the importance of silence/stillness in our lives.

I shall also review some of the books I have read about trees.