Winter Blahs

I know it's very early winter, but already I have a case of winter blahs. Born in England, I can deal with cold weather, and, growing up in Australia, I expect sunshine, but when it's cold and gray, it's horrible. Nobody minds tons of snow when there's brilliant sunshine, and Canada is usually that way. Not today. It's horrible outside, a sort of half-light, as if the sun is going down, and it's only 3 p.m. So I once again admit that I am adversely influenced by light-deprivation. I have all the symptoms. All I want to do is cuddle up on the couch with my cats, and half-watch TV or doze. Not good when I'm trying to complete my book.

As to the novel, I just can't put more chapters up yet. The thing is just not going the way I want. It's baffling to me that I can't handle my own characters, but, everytime I tell them, 'that's it, this is what's going to happen next...' they just ignore me. The latest words look all flat on the screen, uninspiring, so I delete them all, go back again and tell them (my characters), 'that's it, this is what's going to happen next...' and then I go through it all again. I've been doing this for three days. I no longer spring out of bed to get to them. I no longer rush back in here after making a coffee, or eating my lunch. I sort of wander a bit aimlessly towards the computer wondering if they are ready to behave yet.

I feel that I am on the verge of something. It's not what I planned, but it's coming. In the meantime, I will prattle on here, and try to find inspiration in other blogs, which often help.

Sad thing just happened. My newly acquired and much-loved digital notes, which I have been using wildly since I installed the program, suddenly disappeared from my computer. No sign of my bulletin board, my notes on future blogs, my chapter action summaries, chapter page numbers, etc. They've just gone. Usually a little tab just sits on the bottom waiting for me, but no more. So I opened the program, and it asked me to agree to all terms and conditions, etc., as if it had never seen me before. At least the book is more or less finished, and I don't really need to refer to those notes, but I know there were other things...

Much earlier, I mentioned to my son that I was enjoying this new digital notes program. He sort of said, 'ho-hum', because he has a Mac, and apparently Macs have this program built in; I know what I'm going to buy when I replace this aging computer. I used one years ago, but then every office I knew switched to PC, despite my protests. When you freelance, you use the programs and hardware the client uses, and no one was using Mac. I no longer have any clients to speak of, so I'm free to choose my own computer.

Mac wouldn't have eaten its own digital notes.

I bet a Mac would be able to help me pull those characters into line, too.