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Yesterday was the first of December. We woke to some serious snow flurries. They were those huge fluffy flakes. The kind that if it keeps up pile up rapidly if the ground is cold enough. Once upon a time, I would have thought it was magical sight; the first snow fall of the season. Yesterday all I could think of was what a pain in the ass it would be for so many mundane things. Driving is dangerous; walk and driveway to shovel. Those pretty flakes were short hand for all sorts of unpleasant things. And it was cold. The coldest it’s been here this year. It has stayed around freezing or just above it for yesterday and today feels as cold. Once, the cold meant Christmas was coming, one of my favorite times of year. But living in Misourri, as opposed to where I grew up in northern Indiana, has spoiled me. I’ve stopped associating winter’s cold with the winter solstice. Christmas and all it’s accompanying celebration can come when it’s too warm outside for snow. When we first moved here, I felt cheated, now it’s the snow that makes me feel cheated.
The snow didn’t stick, or even last very long, but my first reaction let me know beyond doubt that I am, at long last, a grown-up. Being a writer that can come pretty late in life. I saw the flakes, and they were lovely, swirling down, but all I thought was of the trouble they would cause, and not the magical possibilities. I’m a little sad, I guess. Though, it’s interesting that my most mundane thoughts about snow have come during the longest period of nonwriting that I’ve had since junior high. When I look away from desk in the midst of creating, I don’t think about mundane things, or at least not about my life usually. I think about mundane things from the world I’m writing. I’ll even forget what season my world is having, and think it should be what season I’m writing about. It will be interesting to see if this new grumpy grown-up view is permanent, or if my effort to not write, and it is strangely an effort, is effecting other attitudes. I’m still tired. Still not eager to get back to work. But it will take care of itself, because the edited manuscript of DANSE MACABRE is coming back next week. So I’ll have work. I’ll also be rereading the last Merry book so I’ll remember exactly where on my plot outline that I am. So I’ll ease myself back into work. Though, maybe this vague unease, almost moments of depression is what happens when I’m not working directly on a book. Frankly, it’s been so long since I haven’t had a book in first draft at any given time that I don’t remember how it’s supposed to feel without it. Weird.