Writing in the Rain
A few days ago, I received in my email a column by Timothy Egan called ‘The Longest Nights’, printed in the January 10, 2013 New York Times. He lives in Seattle and talks about the benefit that our long, gray, wet and dreary winters can provide for a writer. As I write this now from my desk in Beaverton, Oregon, I am thinking about the last week of cold, foggy, gray days and how much I slept, ate, pitied myself, and generally dragged my ass around. Right this moment, the sun (the sun!!) is out and I feel I MUST interrupt this writing to go outside for a long-overdue walk around the duckpond. Take a look at his column while I visit the few ducks who hung around for winter.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/the-longest-nights/
Well I went out for the walk and now it’s a couple of days later….. Mr Egan may have a point when he claims that the dreary winter provides the writer with good reason to stay inside at the keyboard. But I know that when the sun was shining, I accomplished a couple of hours of housework and organizing, answered a few emails, and finally, finally, wrote on my blog again after an extended absence.
His column received many comments from people in the south, citing Mark Twain, Hemingway and other writers from sunny climes as proof that his theory was no good.
I think it took the sunshine to get me started, and the drearies (which have come back to Portland again) to force me to stay inside and finish. Yes, yes, I know ….. it is my Libra nature to hop from one side of the scale to the other weighing the value of all conditions. I am grateful to live in a place where I get a nice sampling of all weather, with good reading weather having an edge on the go-outside-and-play weather.
I don’t know how Hemingway was able to write in Key West. Me, I would have been walking the beach every day.
A Boomer's Blog 
Linda, we’ve had a “Portland” winter up to this week in Chicago…lots of gray days and rain, with moderate (for Chicago) temperatures…60 degrees in mid-January. But this week winter finally came, with wind chills below zero and as I wake this morning, 6 degrees (yikes!), and snow. No walking on the beach of Lake Michigan for me this week! So I say to the rest of you…enjoy the warm…
Hope you’re getting thru this big storm OK, Terri.
Hi Linda, I particulary like your description – ‘how much I slept, ate, pitied myself, and generally dragged my ass around’ – this sounds so familiar in Winter months!
I have never monitored in which season that I write the most, however in Spring and Summer I am doing ‘outside things’ and when it’s warm and the sun is shining it’s nice to sit outside and write sometimes – usually my journal because the sun reflects off the laptop screen 🙂