Let me introduce you to my sunlamp. It's not even remotely as bright or as hot as the sun. In fact, I think my iMac gets hotter in about a quarter of the time, but that's for another day. Back to the sunlamp. It's pretty bright. Bright enough that I have it angled slightly away so it isn't right in my eyes or I see spots for a long time. Bright enough to make me forget (until I turn it off) that I've entered the land of murk and there I will reside for long enough to make me think once or twice about leaving.
Not seriously, of course. Well, maybe to parts south for a long weekend. But I promise to come back.
I'm pretty surprised no one has compiled one of those "You know it when..." deals for the Puget Sound/Cascade mountain foothills. Like, "You Know it's November in the Cascade foothills when the sun gets dramatically sucked out of the sky and is replaced by a layer of clouds so thick you begin to doubt there ever was a sun to begin with." Oh, wait. That might be part of my sci-fi for NaNo breaking through. See, the brain melt starts.
The problem is, I like the sun. I don't like sunburn, or heat waves in the consistent 100s (so glad not to have been part of the East Coast Bakedown this past summer). But I like seeing it through the window. I like knowing it's out there. And it always makes me feel guilty when it leaves and I haven't appreciated it enough. But I doubt I'll do better next year.
So I feel like hibernating but I can't. Because today is Day One of NaNoWriMo and I'm finding my novel writing groove. 900 words into scene one and I changed my mind already on a bit character I wanted to be a little more smug, a little more thoughtless toward the "lesser people". Eh, the little darlings run away from me as quickly as I can set their little feet on the paper. Which reminds me, time to crank the lamp up another notch, pretend it's really only September out there, and wrap the leash around my wrist as my characters drag me down the block.
