No more spring!

The two-year anniversary of the start of my latest attempt to write a novel has come and gone and I really haven't made any progress. I've thought about it some, but that doesn't really count. I can't remember the last time I added something substantial to it. So I'm going to complain about something else, something I have no control over, but that won't stop me from complaining about it: The weather.

On average this spring, and I think every spring, temperatures run at least 10 degrees below normal. And it's windy. There's the occasional tease of a sunny, 80-degree day, and then it's right back to a stretch of 50s, cloudy and windy. I'm tired of spring. In fact, I was tired of spring on March 21. If I had any control of the seasons, there would only be three of them: summer, fall and winter.

Summer would last five months: five months of 90-degree days and 70-degree nights, a good dose of humidity and an occasional light breeze, no wind, except for during thunderstorms. But no tornados or hurricanes.

Fall would last four months and would feature daytime highs in the 70s, nights in the 50s and less humidity. The perfect conditions for keeping the windows open.

Then three months of real winter, or nine weeks to be more exact. Nine weeks of knee-deep snow, logs on the fireplace and lots of hot chocolate. The last three weeks of winter would make up for March, April and May. Three weeks should be long enough for the body to adjust from winter to summer, and for the plants and animals as well. Three weeks of misery; 49 weeks of the stuff I like.

Will I ever get started again?

May 10 will be the two-year anniversary of when I started my latest attempt to write a novel. If all had gone according to fantasy, I would be getting ready for a promotional tour right about now _ to promote my second best seller. Then it would be off to some paradise for a well-deserved month-long vacation, maybe even two months, to rest up and collect my thoughts for best-seller number three. Long gone would be the days of the 9-5 job (really 8-5 with that all-important lunch hour). The only schedule I would keep would be my own, or perhaps that of an editor or two. Dream on. I was hoping the blog would get me motivated to start working on it again. I think the end is in sight, if I could just get going. There's no good reason not to work on it. It doesn't have to be a masterpiece, it just needs to be done. I keep telling myself that and then get right into bemoaning how awful it is. Well, that's all I can stomach for now. I'll probably be writing something very similar next week, unless I actually make some progress before then. How's that for motivation?

JMU86er