Weather
Somewhere, some time ago I read a short piece by a writer on when, seasonally, he sets his books. I want to say it was winter. Hell, I will say it was winter, because the chances of me finding this piece are slim to nil. This wasn't a topic I'd thought much about, but when I read the essay I realized that both my books: My Summer of Southern Discomfort and work-in-progress we call book #2 begin in summer. Not coincidentally, that's also the season I began writing both books. This summer I'm beginning book #3. I don't know why it's always summer when I start books. Maybe I've just internalized that summer is when novels begin. The new project, however, starts in the fall, because it's based on an academic calendar.
This bubbled to the surface of my mind because the forecast here in and around Boston calls for four 90 degree days in a row. Yowza. Let me tell you, it's pretty easy to imagine a steamy summer Georgia when you're sweating it out in 90 degree weather. But imagining a crisp autumn day in which the color pallete runs to red, not green? I'll just have to use that imagination of mine. If I don't perish of heat stroke first.