Friday, September 25, 2009

Equinox turns me on

Summertime is not my creative friend. I feel stifled and listless the longer the sun shines each day and the hotter the temperature gets. By July, when the thermometer hovers at no less than 95 and the sun stays up until 9 pm, my ability to write prose vanishes. Even my dreams are vapid (I actually dreamed about doing dishes two nights in a row last week).

Now that equinox has come, I feel like my muse plugged my mind into a nuclear power plant. Suddenly I am flush with brilliant ideas, vivid dreams, and an eagerness to sit at my computer all day, writing. Plots are revealed in epic detail. Characters who were once wandering along the page aimlessly suddenly know exactly where they should be going. Words rush through my mind faster than I can write them down, and some of them are good. I am eager to create and resent everything that inhibits me from spending hours doing so.

This is purely psychological, because despite it now being Autumn, the temperature is 100. Summer obviously doesn't care what the calendar says because she refuses to go away without a fight. Or maybe I feel this way because there is less daylight. Instead of crawling into bed at 9:00, worn out and discouraged, I write for an hour. The darkness is soothing. It chases the heat away and tells the world to slow down. Be still. It's dreaming time.

Last night I started rewriting a short story I haven't touched in five years. It's a story concept I love which isn't working, but right now I feel like I've found a way to express what the character is trying to say. The story revolves around a wounded woman, Johnny Depp, and a rock garden. This time, she knows what to do.

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