Change of Seasons

Where did the summer go? It seems like only yesterday that I was looking at the calendar and counting the days until I could pack away the sweaters and break out the sunscreen. Mother Nature decided not to cooperate and, instead of sending summer, sent the rainy season instead. Dreary days followed one after the other and an umbrella took up permanent residence in my briefcase. Don't get me wrong, there were some sunny days mixed in, but they were few and far between and hardly ever on a weekend. I fondly recall the Saturday I was digging in the mud to save the plants I had bought from dying a slow death in the garage. And then presto, the rain was gone an the sun appeared for more than one day in a row! It was summer at last! That was mid-August. A few paltry weeks later and the temperature took a dangerous dip. This morning I left the house for work, lulled into a false security by a few pleasantly warm days, only to be hit by a cool breeze on my bare arms. Maybe it's a good thing that I never got to pack those sweaters away, but I still want to know . . . where did my summer go?

Come Rain or Come Shine

In a burst of energy, I’ve been doing a lot of writing this past week due to the incessant rain and gloominess in this part of the country. Waking this morning to yet another grey day, I sat at the computer with my cup of tea and turned my attention to writing the next chapter of my new book. As the words appeared on the screen, it occurred to me that the weather was becoming a part of the story. Many scenes in the last fifty pages have been as dark and dreary as the scene outside my window. Curious, I looked back on some pages written in fairer days and found them definitely more upbeat and cheerful. How much of our surroundings do we as writers put in our work? It’s a well known fact that Mary Shelley penned her famous Frankenstein story during a particularly cold and dreary summer in Geneva, weather conditions that are obvious in every page. For us contemporary writers, what do we bring to our work from our daily lives? When we have an argument with a spouse, do the characters in the story quarrel as well? Do we choose to keep them part of the story or re-work them into something different? I can’t say for certain how much of me and my family I’ve brought to my characters in the past, no doubt more than I think; but I’ll be looking a bit more closely at it in the future.