Some Sites for Nature Reading and Writing

Being interesting in writing about nature--and reading about nature--I sometimes look around the web to see what I can find. I have linked to some of these before, but I think they are good resources for nature writing.

Nature Books Online (These are, of course, old books, but interesting nonetheless. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for related topics.)

Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing

Orion Magazine - nature/culture/place

Nature Writing Resources

Naturewriting Resources and Inspiration

Henry David Thoreau

Enjoy exploring!

Fog in December

The weather in Oklahoma City today is foggy and drizzly. It started yesterday and has continued overnight. It is, thankfully, above freezing, so it is a pleasant kind of fall weather--the sort you wouldn't want to last indefinitely, but pleasant for awhile.

The fallen leaves at the office range from a deep burgundy to orange, yellow, and brown. Sometimes we have Canadian geese in the parking lot. There are several lakes around the city, both large and small, and the geese apparently like to rest here on their way south. We also enjoy their presence in the church parking lot. They stroll around and stare at the people. Perhaps it is their idea of a zoo!

The drizzle is light, but steady, and drips off the trees and roofs. The misty air is cool and refreshing. The fog varies in thickness from place to place and from time to time. It is the perfect sort of day to get out a little and then settle in at home, where it's warm and cozy and dry. Definitely hot chocolate weather.

It is quiet, too, as most people are not yet out and about. I changed my windshield wipers yesterday and am glad I did. The old ones were worn out and were almost worse than not having windshield wipers. I also needed a new taillight bulb. My friends told me to go to a certain auto parts store and they would change it for me. Ha! I guess I didn't look helpless enough. I didn't have any trouble changing it myself, though, so I'm good to go.

We are expecting this pleasant weather to change to ice sometime tomorrow and on through Tuesday and maybe Wednesday. It might snow, but the weathermen are mostly talking freezing rain, which is a major headache. It's pretty to look at from inside, though. Here's hoping it doesn't get too bad!

Journaling

Keeping a journal, or perhaps several journals for different subjects, is one way to provide yourself with material to write essays, poems, and stories.



On the subject of nature writing, see Nature Writing. Scroll down to the "Table of Contents" and click on "naturewriting ideas". On the left side of your screen, click on "Thoreau's Model for Nature Writing" and you'll find an article with ideas about a nature writing journal. Back on the home page for the website Nature Writing you can scroll again to the "Table of Contents" and click on "nature journal" and find samples of journal entries by a number of writers of varying ages and interests. Interesting material there.

You can do a search on "journaling" and find all sorts of resources on the internet. Keeping journals is pretty easy to do for yourself, though. Just grab a notebook and start writing! You can have one journal for everything, or you can have several journals--such as one for writing, one for nature observations, one for spiritual thoughts, one for family history and information, etc. You don't have to write everyday. The main thing is to capture important ideas and information that you can refer back to.

Try it out!

A Bat on a Tree

This past Thursday we saw a small bat clinging to a tree next to our office building. It was upside down, true to form, but hugging the side of the tree about three feet up from the ground rather than hanging from a branch. It was somewhat curled up, but was only about three inches long in that position. Some bats are quite small while others are very large, so I don't know if it was a baby bat or a full-grown one. At least we didn't have a large mother bat swoop down on us! I don't know if one would even do that. Do you get the idea that I don't know much about bats?

Apparently, it was sleeping, although it's possible it was sick. Everyone who went out to have a look had enough sense not to touch it, except for one young lady who poked it (gently) with a stick. She said it moved slightly and clicked at her, so it was alive. Dark brown and furry, it stayed motionless all day (except when being poked), but was gone today. I hope it was just sleeping and flew away at dusk, healthy and happy.

I was disappointed to not get a look at its little face--that might have given me some way of later looking at pictures to try to identify it. Still, it was one of those interesting, quirky things that sometimes happen. I was surprised that it would hang itself up in the open like that rather than higher up in the tree where it would be hidden among the branches and leaves and less noticeable to predators, like the cats that hang around our building. But then, who knows what bats think about.

Nature Links

Here are some links for those of you who are interested in learning more about nature. If you are interested in nature writing, these can help you learn more about what you are observing so that you can do a better job of writing about it.

Neartica

The Natural World

The Nature Conservancy

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Scott's Botanical Links

U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works

eNature: America's Wildlife Resource

Bird Watchers Digest

National Audubon Society

There are, of course, many more sites to be found. You can search such terms as wildflowers, trees, birds, lakes, or similar terms. Enjoy!

Nature Writing Considerations

I have been mulling over in my mind the various considerations that go into writing about nature. A common approach is to describe one's observations out in the field. This is what readers of nature writing enjoy most--learning about plants and animals and the earth in its natural state. How do the various kinds of animals act? How do they react to the other things in their environment? What about plants? What grows well in the area you are observing? What does it contribute to the environment?

In addition to simply describing observations, what else could go into nature writing? It depends, of course, on your intended audience. Are you going to write in a more technical way, or are you writing for a general audience? The latter would be my own goal--to write so that any reader can enjoy what I have to say and learn a little in the process.

Environmental concerns often enter into nature writing. This is a good thing because I believe that humans should be good stewards of their environments. There is a wide range of opinion on how this should be accomplished, though, and that will affect what outlets are available to you for publication of your nature writing. Some venues will support one viewpoint and others another. I do believe that we need to be aware of how what people do affects the environment. We need to avoid pollution of land and water and air. However, a certain amount of pollution is inevitable in normal human activities. Some blame capitalism, some blame humans en masse, some blame other things.

My personal viewpoint is that the earth was created for the benefit of man. It is a place for people to grow and learn and develop their talents and abilities. It is not okay to trash the environment, but it is okay to use it wisely. I believe that the more property that is in private hands (individuals or businesses), the better the care that property will receive. People are more likely to be careless with that which does not belong to them. If it is theirs, they will want to conserve its resources and use it wisely, preserving it so that it continues to produce food or beauty or whatever it is that is intended.

Writing about nature (or any other subject) helps one to consider his viewpoint and to make decisions about what approach to take. This leads to research and investigation to find information to help make those decisions. It seems to me that writing, whether for publication or not, can help a person solidify his ideas and learn to express them well. It develops talents and abilities in that person. It develops discipline of mind and thought. It can also help those who read the writing to learn and grow and have ideas to consider. For this reason, I write and hope to someday publish some of my work so that others might benefit. In a sense, I am publishing my writing on this and my other blogs, but it is for a somewhat limited number of readers. Still, however small the audience and whether people agree or disagree, they will have something to consider.

Reflections

Mid-July and we have already surpassed our normal average yearly rainfall this year. It's very green here, with accents of color from the blooming flowers. The birds and insects are out in full force, living their lives with enthusiasm.

I find that I don't remember the identities of many plants and animals that I used to know when I lived in the country. Still, a memory can always be refreshed with the help of a field guide or two. That is a good thing if I want to write about nature!

I splurged this morning on Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape edited by Barry Lopez. It is something of a nature dictionary and promises to be interesting reading. Thanks, Anna Mills, for recommending this book!

Writing is a heady mixture of reading and studying, writing, and experiencing life. It doesn't get any better than this!

Personal Reflection

Another week has come and gone. Time flies whether you're having fun or not!

I have been reading nature writing, especially Henry David Thoreau. I have some other writers to sample, such as Barry Lopez and a book of essays by different writers. I want to read a variety and get a notion of how they write their material.

I am not what you would call an environmental activist, but I do believe we have a responsibility to God to be good stewards of the earth. That will be the place I am coming from when I begin my own nature writing. I do not know whether it will fit in the published world, but I will give it a shot!

I do want to promote an enjoyment of nature and science. There is much to learn and it is fascinating! It's a wonder to learn what happens and how things work, or at least how we think they work. Nature is also a great stress reliever--to just get outside and observe the plants and animals is to unwind and let go of life's business--and busyness.

I have always enjoyed botanical drawings and would like to improve my drawing ability so that I can create some of those for my own pleasure. Birds and animals as subjects of art are appealing to me, too, as are landscapes. I also love drawings of old houses and barns.

Sometimes I wish I weren't so interested in so many things!

Literary Science and Nature Writing

I have been thinking lately about literary science and nature writing--how enjoyable it is to read and the possibility of writing in that genre. My inspiration was these posts by Patricia Karamesines at A Motley Vision blog.

I have found an online essay by Barry Lopez in which he discusses what nature writing is and something about its evolution. He mentions many books and authors, so his essay will also give you plenty of material to try out at the library. I don't necessarily agree with some of his statements, but overall it is a good essay and a thought-provoking one. His opening paragraph reads:

In recent years, partly because of a tendency in market-based economies to niche all information, but also in response to a relatively sudden awareness of the social and political impact environmental legislation and thought have had on American society, people have come to speak of nature writing as a distinct, even emergent genre. It is more accurate, most critics assert, to say we are witnessing a resurgence in the genre; and, setting it alongside other genres, it is arguably more helpful to see it as that strain of American literature that, more than others now, is pursuing the ancient discourse on human fate.

A later paragraph says:

The philosophical roots of this work, obviously, lie with Thoreau and Emerson, and the genre includes elements of misanthropy (often, in my view, exaggerated) in people like Edward Abbey, Robinson Jeffers, and Loren Eiseley. But, again, it is hazardous to try to maintain strict bounds. Certain writers frequently cited as nature writers bring with them an additional emphasis -- Wallace Stegner's citizenship, say, or Gary Nabhan's ethnobotany. John Muir, though central to any definition of nature writing, is also considered a focal political figure; Aldo Leopold, another pivotal figure, is not literary enough for some, while Thomas Merton is often regarded as peripheral because his writing is too "spiritual." (I would argue that Merton, more than any other contemporary prose writer, maintained the tradition of spirituality in American writing now thought to be integral to nature writing.) And, in any given critical article, we may learn that, say, Mary Austin, author of The Land of Little Rain (1903), like Susan Fenimore Cooper, author of Rural Hours (1850), has just been "rediscovered" as a nature writer.

It's an interesting essay for those who would like to learn a bit more about nature writing and have some examples of authors to explore.

Henry David Thoreau is probably the nature writer who leaps to everyone's mind when considering this category--I know I enjoy reading his writings. I haven't read a great deal of science and nature writing, but I did read some selections in my anthology classes in literature.

There are any number of ways to go about producing literary science and nature writing. One can emphasize facts or one can emphasize personal observation. One can write poetry, essays, or fiction. Some travel writing could fall into this category, as well. The genre interests me, though, so I will be sampling some various authors and styles and perhaps tackle some writing myself. Also, see my post here at Scholar and here at By Study and Also by Faith, my other blogs, for more on this topic.