Tuesday, August 19, 2008

The Dog Days…

Am I the only one who finds it hard to write in summer?

I’m not really sure why it’s so. The kids are out of school, admittedly, and vacation time does break up the days and weeks. Vacation traveling is wonderful, and I love it, but tends to leave me wasted for a while.

But it’s not really those things. And it’s certainly not the lure of the garden calling me to dig my fingers into the earth and get beautiful things to grow. Not in August in North Carolina. In fact, very few activities are appealing enough to lure me out of my air-conditioned office in the month of August.

Nonetheless, it seems as if the oppressive heat and humidity somehow slip into my spirit and suck at my energy even with air conditioning running and doors closed. And when I do force myself to scratch out a few sentences, they don’t satisfy me. I’m pretty sure that everything I write in August is total crap.

Fortunately I know September is coming. Oddly, the cooler air of fall brings a sense of renewal for me. My energy returns even as the world prepares for activity to slow down, trees to go dormant and animals to hibernate.

The leaves explode in a blaze of color, new terms start at school, and I’m ready to get moving again. That includes writing. After a few weeks of producing little, I know it will start flowing again with the coming of Autumn.

Katherine Kingston

2 comments:

N.J.Walters said...

With me it's not so much the dog days of summer as it has been the rainy, dull summer. It's been depressing. And when it does manage to get sunny I want to be outdoors.

Like you, I find fall a renewing time and tend to work well.

Here's to Autumn!

J L said...

I tend to view just about any change of season as an impetus to change my writing. I write in several genres and I find that when I change seasons, I'll frequently change genres. Autumn is my usual time for my paranormal series. Late winter-summer is for my first-person mysteries, and the dead of winter is for my romantic suspense.

We'll see if that holds true this year, as well. I'm in the middle of a first-person WIP but have the idea for the next book in my paranormal series. If I can finish my WIP by October, I can move on to the paranormal.