2023 A to Z Challenge Blog F is for Frozen

Good morning. I’m stepping away from my Did You Know? for a moment to give those of you who don’t live in this area a few pictures of what Wednesday was like here. The first picture was taken about two hours into the storm. The two at the bottom show the willow tree in my yard bowed so low that it kisses the ground. The last picture is the willow Thursday morning. Sadly, it will have to come down.

This final picture was taken by my sister of her deck and her table with its tablecloth of ice. It actually looks pretty in an eerie way.

Mother Nature has been throwing a lot of really ugly weather at us recently. We’ve seen brutal tornadoes, snowstorms, ice storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions … you name it. How does freakish weather help me as a writer? It helps make descriptions more realistic, thus immersing the reader in the situation.

Today’s Did You Know focuses on the letter F and how something like a freezing rainstorm and a frozen landscape can enhance your writing. Many of my readers have commented on the realism in my descriptions. I’ve often been told that reading one of my books is like being there. There’s actually a really good reason for that. In many cases, I’ve been there and seen the places for myself or lived through the experience. If I didn’t live through it, then I research extensively, find interviews with survivors and authentic news reports on the subject. Of course, living in my little sector of Canada, I’m exposed to some fairly brutal winter weather. Living where I do, I set a lot of my books during the winter. Most recently, those settings have been snowstorms, but I foresee an ice storm in some book this year.

In my novel, No Good Deed, from the Vengeance is Mine series, the story starts with my heroine navigating her way through a snowstorm.

Take a peek:

Late April

Alexa O’Brien white-knuckled the steering wheel, her foot barely touching the accelerator as she followed the taillights of the pickup truck ahead of her. She didn’t dare stay any farther back. If she did, she wouldn’t see the guiding lights at all and would end up in the ditch. Of course, if the truck went off the road, she would be up Shit Creek without a paddle.

She snorted, fluttering her lips. “Damn you, Mother Nature. You’re supposed to be on my side.”

The tires on the old wreck she’d bought were almost as bald as her stepfather had been. What a lecture he would give her if he could see her now. Another man who’d claimed he knew what was best for her. In this case, he was probably right, but he’d been wrong too many times to count. It was her life—her mistakes to make—and while some of them had been doozies, she’d taken control once more.

Pray God she didn’t have to brake suddenly.

She’d planned her escape so carefully, timed it to coincide with Richard’s trip to Africa, and now this. Where the hell had a foot of snow come from? It was the end of April. Even in Canada, that meant spring, or at least it had in the past before climate change had become a real and terrifying fact of life.

The distance between her car and the vehicle ahead shortened. Alexa eased up on the accelerator. What was she doing? Twenty miles per hour? Maybe twenty-five?

The lights ahead turned a deeper red. She was coming up on the truck too fast.

“Holy shit!”

She moved her foot from the gas pedal to the brake, pumping the pedal twice, but it didn’t help. She screeched. Like Bambi on ice, the car swerved, spun around twice, and then skidded to the right. Time stood still—the car didn’t.

Think, Alexa, think. What did you learn in that damn defensive driving course?

Heart pounding, stomach roiling, she took her foot off the brake and slowly turned the steering wheel until the tires of the car pointed into the skid, praying the damn things would grip.

Donuts in a parking lot were one thing, but they weren’t quite so much fun at night, on an unfamiliar road, during a frigging snowstorm.

She trembled, holding the steering wheel so tightly she was sure her fingerprints were embedded in the plastic. All she could see were the trees coming at her, but ever so slightly, the car slowed, straightened to face the direction she wanted it to, and stopped less than three feet from the pickup’s tailgate.

Her heart thundered in her ears, and she exhaled heavily. While she wasn’t directly behind the small truck, she was back on the road, no worse for the wear, even if she did feel like a cat who’d just lost another life. Shaking so badly that she had trouble shifting the car into park, she rested her forehead against the steering wheel, waiting for her heart to slow.

Someone tapped on her window, and she jumped.

Who the hell would be walking on the road in this weather?

A second tap, harder and more urgent than before, gave her no choice. Scraping away the frost on the inside of the window, she was blinded by the sudden brief flash of light in her face. Bile rose in her throat, and her heart resumed its frantic pace. Hand trembling, she rolled down the window.

“Excusez-moi, mais le 30 est fermé. Tu dois rester sur the 20.”

“I … I don’t speak French,” Alexa stammered to the police officer.

“There has been an accident,” the woman said, her th sounding like d. “This highway, it’s closed. Turn right at my car and follow the 20 through Dorion. There’s a motel along that road. Not a good night to drive.”

“Thank you. I’d sort of figured that out for myself.” Alexa rolled up the window once more, taking two deep breaths to calm herself before putting the car in gear and slowly inching along behind the truck.

There is nothing like experience to help with description. You only have to be caught in one of these once to remember. Sadly, it’s almost an annual thing.

That’s it for me today. Find other bloggers and their posts here. https://tinyurl.com/3we8aa84

Come back tomorrow when I’ll give you a Did You Know? for the letter G. Enjoy your day.