It's seldom that I write for therapy but that's what I've been doing today. I spent a few hours this afternoon working on some interactive fiction (i.e. a computer text game) about talking a walk along a country road on a summer evening. Which probably doesn't sound thrilling but considering the snow on the ground and the fact the temperature isn't supposed to rise to freezing for the next week (or so) it certainly worked for me. I kept my face averted from the frosted window and pretended the electric heater was wafting a July breeze.

There is probably too much weather in what Mary and I write. It tends to rain when things are going bad. Sixth century Constantinople was, by our account, a dismal place, from a meteorological point of view. For my part, it isn't exactly. a matter of being addicted to weather cliches in my writing. I know all about Bulwer Lytton...I even had an opening line in the Bride of Dark and Stormy collection. The fact is, I am just preoccupied with weather in my everyday life.

Rainy days really do get me down (almost as much as the lousy song does). As for cold and snow...I'd rather not even talk about it. In my Firefox bookmarks I have a whole folder full of links to various weather reports and radars -- local, national, the Zone Forecast, the ten day forecast, every nearby tv stations, storm tracks, snow fall totals. I am on the alert. Totally prepared to....well...basically...to agonize helplessly over onrushing storms.

So, sometimes in the winter I write about the summer. Does that work? Would it be easier to visualize the season during which I'm writing? I suspect my portrayal of summer, written in January, would be more pleasant than one written in July, with sweat running off me to serve as a reminder of how unpleasant heat can be. (How easily we forget)

Of course, if I were to decide to set a book during a brutal winter, and started it during a January blizzard to get in the mood, by rewrite time it would be the dog days of August and I might be inclined to edit out all the misery of the cold.