If you are
anything like me, weather has a great deal of impact on your mood and
productivity. While we have not had the snow our friends in the northeast have
experienced, the winter of 2015 here in Dallas would best be classified as
bipolar. One day it is 70 degrees and the next we have freezing rain. We had
four inches of snow last night and now it is nearly all gone. We’ve gone
through long stretches without seeing the sun. The constant state of flux has
made it hard for me to focus. Even tasks like writing this post seem too
daunting to manage.
So I’m
letting other people write it.
I reached
out to several of my writer friends, asking them what the weather has been like
in their neck of the woods, and how it has helped or hurt the number of words
that make it to the page. Some of their ideas about how to keep or reclaim
focus may be of help to some of you (like me) who are still struggling. Here is
what they had to say:
“I am a summer person, and am more
productive when the weather is sunnier and hotter. Here on the West Coast it
has been a particularly foggy and wet winter. The fog really drags me down, and
productivity in all areas flags. I’ve been using my light box more this winter.”
“New York City's very trying, cold, icy winter has made me
want to run away inside my novel and find a nicer world. I wrote one scene
describing such sweet spring weather, and was quite astonished to find myself
still struggling over dirty mountains of old snow outside. Which shows my
creative worlds are more real to me at times than the one I live in every day!
I wrote cherry blossoms and really expected them to appear!”
“Maryland has had pretty gloomy weather for the last 3
months--lots of rain, ice, wintry mix; very little sunshine. I normally love
winter and find grey days excellent for concentration, but lately have been
finding it hard to keep working. The desire to pamper myself--perhaps comfort
is a better word--gets stronger with every dismal day. If it just snowed, I'd
be a lot happier! (I used to live in Massachusetts and miss the snow's clean
lines, the blue light at dawn and dusk.)”
“I’m
hesitant to blame my lack of writing progress on the weather, but February here
in southern Ontario has been downright nasty. We had stints of wicked cold (-20
to -30, for those of us who speak only Celsius… to put that in perspective,
that feeling when you go outside and your forehead kind of aches from the cold
is around -15) followed by slight warming, but the slight warming was always
accompanied by giant dumps of snow. There are mountains of shoveled snow acting
like blinders alongside my driveway; backing onto the street means taking a
deep breath, hoping for the best and gunning it. I don’t think we saw an
above-freezing temperature all month. I mostly gave up on running
outside.
So
yes—it’s been more a month of going mad than of writing like mad. You’d think
that, stranded indoors, I’d find lots of time for writing. Not so, and I’m not
sure why. I was frustrated with my project, feeling like I couldn’t get
anywhere. To be honest, I put it aside. Not in a mature, considered way,
either. If my story were a person, I’d have shoved her into the ditch with all
the self-restraint of a tantrummy three-year-old. I wiped my hands clean and
walked away.
But
oddly, just as the past few days have gotten brighter and it’s starting to feel
like there might possibly be an end to this winter, I’m feeling hopeful about
my writing again, too. My writing group meetings have helped, even when I
didn’t want to go and had to force myself out the door. It was good to see
friends, especially friends who have struggled with their writing, too. The workshop
I attended recently also helped—I’d almost forgotten about it, and grumbled
when it popped up on my calendar, but hearing about someone else’s approach to
story helped unlock my rusty brain-cogs and start things spinning again.
I
don’t know how it’s going to go, but the snowdrifts are shrinking, and I’m
easing back into writing and back into the world.”
“February in the Mighty Mitten was
cold and snowy. The temperature never rose above freezing once, was below zero
about a dozen times, and topped out in the single digits or teens more than
half the days of the month. We had about a half-dozen major snow events (more
than four inches) in February, but on well over half the days of the month we
received dustings and/or snow flurries. Total snowfall for this area for the
year is around 70 inches. Unlike the Northeast, this has been a fairly typical
winter, here along the Lake Michigan shoreline. And it’s been beautiful!
As is typical for me, the winter
months are more productive, writing wise. I finished a draft of a major rewrite
of a manuscript in February, after struggling with it over the holidays. The manuscript
was a total rewrite (in other words, I did not reuse any old material), as near
as I can calculate (based on where I think I was on Feb. 1), I wrote around 55K
of new words, plus assorted essays, etc. The final few days of the month were
spent in a pass-through edit of the project (in which I’m still engaged).
I’ve always loved reading or writing
in inclement weather. There is a coziness and a feeling of solitude, and
perhaps a bit of melancholy, that all suits my fiction, and leads me to hunker
down and disappear into the process. There is a lovely quietude that comes with
the snow. It’s so still out there. I’m cushioned in sweaters and thick socks
and slippers, with a hot coffee cup to warm my hands. Immersion is easier. I
look out at the swirling snowflakes, and the green pines and gray beech trunks,
and I’m off to Dania.”
“So. The weather here has been wonderful, if you
are a fan of Frosty the Snowman, who has decided to move in permanently. My
youngest has had 7 snow days and at least one delay, followed by a week of
vacation. Not much writing is happening. On the other hand, he's growing so
fast he's only about 6 inches shorter than me now, and in a few years snow days
will mean sleeping late or hanging with his friends instead of sledding with
me, so I'm still pretty grateful for the extra time.”
“I spent almost the entire month of February sick,
and did little to progress my actual book. It also meant I had too much time to
doubt my current book, to dither between projects, and doubt every word I've
ever written. It's been a rough winter. My husband has talked about getting me
one of the light boxes Brin mentioned.
Keeping a journal pulled me through the worst of the doubt, though I'm still
muddling through questions about what I should be writing. I did a lot of
stream of conscious writing and surprised myself with a few revelations about
my process and what was in my *colander*.
Meditation also helps me get through the worst of the weather. I am a much
better person (and less grumpy mom) when I take the time to just *be*. But,
like writing, it's a practice. Some sessions are better than others.
We have almost two feet of snow where I live in south-central Illinois, as well
as below zero temps. I live in a rural area where many people reside in the
country and have been snowed in. I have an elderly great aunt I've been taking
medicine to.”
“Winter is the time I do most of my writing,
because in the warmer months I want to be outside. And this has definitely
happened this winter, because I have been trapped indoors with the never-ending
snow. *sobbing* And although, like Liz, my kids have had 8 days off from school
followed by a vacation, I've still managed to get a good number of words on the
page, and even better, I've been happy with most of what I've written.”
“Growing up in an area with sunshine 350 days out
of the year left me with reverse seasonal affective disorder. I need the change
of seasons both for clear thinking and focus. I do work differently in warm
weather vs. cold—outside by the harbor during the summer months and at my
desktop during the winter. Venue doesn't seem to affect productivity.
That said, we just came off the snowiest month on record, and I've had trouble
concentrating. Not because of the gloomy weather, but because of
claustrophobia. I live on the ground floor and the snow is piled so high around
my building, when I look outside, all that is visible are walls of white.”
"Here in the Florida panhandle, our winters are
quite mild, with about a cumulative week's worth of cold in the 20's scattered
throughout February. There really is no big change in seasons...the leaves drop
and the grass browns, things become dormant, but that's about it. I usually have
a lot of yard maintenance in the winter, because once everything comes back to
life, it comes back in full-force. Since the days are short, I do my writing at
night during the winter. During the summer, of course it's tough to keep on top
of the growth (especially if you didn't do winter maintenance), but since the
days are so hot, I only work in the yard in the early morning or late evenings
and write during mid-day. So, seasons do alter my writing habits--at least the
time of day that I write."
M.L. Swift –
writer of “unboxed” stories that don’t fit neatly into a genre.
"I am more productive in the winter. I posted on my
blog about this topic. When the weather is inclement (I live in Connecticut) I
find myself indoors more and it is much easier to write. In the summer there
are too many competing distractions. I love the beach and I like to be outdoors
in the summer. I suppose that's no excuse because one can always bring a laptop
or tablet and write outdoors."
So, what's the weather been like in your neck of the woods? How has it affected your productivity? If it inspires you, why? If it does the opposite, how have you been able to reclaim your lost focus?
