I’ve always loved reading fantasy books, and a huge part of the attraction has always been the settings for these stories. The rolling hills and woodlands of Narnia. The peaks and valleys in Cinda Williams Chima’s Seven Realms series. The rugged, empty beauty of the plains and mountains in Elizabeth Bear’s Eternal Sky trilogy. All of these and many more come to mind, sometimes brought to life on a movie screen, other times allowed to bloom unhindered within my imagination.

A story’s setting determines a lot about the direction the tale will take. Choosing to toss your characters into a scorching desert – or a howling hurricane at sea – means opting for a specific approach to the narrative. Climate and season are an intrinsic part of this choice.

When I first heard about the Journeys anthology from Woodbridge Press, I immediately knew I wanted to write something set in winter. I’d recently seen The Revenant and, all things bear-related aside, I was fascinated by the way the movie uses the snow and cold as a protagonist in the story. It had been a while since I’d read or watched a tale where the setting is such a huge part of things: almost a sentient character in its own right, and not merely a backdrop to the events taking place.

I moved to suburban Connecticut three years ago, after spending almost my entire life in the sub-tropical, big city sprawl of São Paulo, Brazil. In São Paulo, seasonal planning means figuring out new routes to escape the traffic snarls during the summer rainstorms that periodically flood parts of the city and make everyone’s life a very damp nightmare. Suddenly, here I was in New England, stocking up on ice melt and bottled water, and reading endless articles on correct winter prep in the face of incoming snowstorms. Different is an understatement.

(Today, as I huddle over my laptop writing this, we’ve already had eight inches of fresh snow since last night and more is falling relentlessly. And ‘thunder snow’? Is a thing, apparently.)

I wanted my story for Journeys to reflect some of the challenges that living through a cold winter presents. Not the temporary snow-sun-sparkles joy of a ski trip or mountain holiday, where you can quickly shake off the shivers in front of a log fire with a mug of something warm, and then fly home when you’ve had enough. But the bone-deep chill of day after day of cold weather, and the ‘absolutely done with it’ feeling you get when March rolls around, and there’s still an entire iceberg of snow plow leftovers sitting in your driveway, big enough to sink a cruise ship or two.

Winter, with a capital W, in all its blazing, white, complicated, wet, nasty glory.

So now I had my setting. I had the feel I wanted to capture – trudging through snow, cold hands, cold face, and warm breath that quickly turns to ice when it condenses against your scarf. All I needed was a cast of slightly shady characters (because let’s face it, you’re not going to be out travelling in the middle of winter unless you’re deeply motivated!), and a somewhat stabby little plot to move them forward. Everything in position? Ready, set, frostbite.

Juliana Spink Mills is the author of the short story Fool’s Quest in the Journeys anthology, as well as the YA urban fantasy novel Heart Blade, Book 1 of the Blade Hunt Chronicles (Woodbridge Press, February 2017).

“I blog about a variety of incredibly random and not very serious things at www.jspinkmills.com, and you can find me on Twitter as @JSpinkMills.”