The Writing Season: Which is yours?

Zoë Sharp

This year, winter seems to have passed into summer almost overnight. Very little by way of Springtime, just snow one day and a heatwave the next. At the moment, for the May Bank Holiday here in the UK, we are stunned to be enjoying good weather. Let’s hope, after the endless Game Of Thrones-style winter we’ve endured, the sunshine is here to stay. (For a little while, at least.)

winter went on and on this year...

I like writing in the winter, I have to admit. When the weather’s cold and (usually) either raining sideways or snowing, there’s something rather nice about curling up on the sofa in front of a wood burning stove, trying to juggle lap space between a MacBook and a sprawling cat.

Besides, the temperature and the early darkness of the winter does not encourage other activities, so a somewhat sedentary existence is no hardship. I make lists of jobs about the house ‘for when the better weather arrives’ without feeling a desperate urge to get on with them right there and then.

But equally, the winter brings on a kind of lethargic hibernation that no daylight lamps or extra doses of Vitamin D seem to shift.

Lulu, squeezing herself in alongside my laptop.

Summer, on the other hand, encourages me to get out and walk more, or finally tick off those jobs I was busily listing To Be Done over the winter. I’ve just finished plastering one of the upstairs bedroom walls and making a new window sill. Painting and cleaning and mowing of grass all calls to be done. There are fences to put up and veggies to plant and even though I’m sure I weeded the garden last year, damn me, it all needs doing again.

Not what most people have in mind when they
admit to being plastered at the weekend, I'll bet...

So, although I love nothing more than to bask on the veranda in shorts and flip-flops, with my laptop open in front of me, the bees buzzing nearby, and the cats sunbathing in the long grass, there are just too many other distracting things going on.

The winter may be more restrictive, but I think on balance I get more books read and more scribbling done. What about you? Are you winter or summer?

This week’s Word of the Week is eponym, which is a person after whom a discovery, invention or place is named, such as a malapropism, meaning the mistaken use of a word, usually to comic effect, named after the character of Mrs Malaprop in Sheridan’s play The Rivals from 1775. A proprietary eponym, on the other hand, is a trademark or brand name that, due to its popularity or significance, has become the generic name for a general type of product. Examples are Kleenex rather than tissue, Q-Tip rather than cotton swab, and Escalator.

Zoë’s upcoming events:

Thursday, May 10^th @ 2:00pm

Author talk at Ellesmere Port Library

Civic Way

Ellesmere Port

Cheshire CH65 0BG

Thursday, May 10^th @ 7:00pm

Author talk at Upton Library

Wealstone Lane

Upton

Cheshire CH2 1HB

Saturday, May 19^th @ 9:00 – 9:50am

CrimeFest

Marriott College Green

Bristol

‘W Is For Woman – Something To Prove?’

Sharan Newman (Moderator)

Jane Casey

Niki Mackay

Christine Poulson

Zoë Sharp

Saturday, May 19^th @ 2:00 – 2:50pm

CrimeFest

Marriott College Green

Bristol

‘Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang: Classic Thrillers’

Jake Kerridge (Moderator)

CJ Carver

Lee Child

Mike Ripley

Zoë Sharp

Sunday, May 20^th @ 9:30 – 10:20 am

CrimeFest

Marriott College Green

Bristol

‘The Indie Alternative’

Zoë Sharp (Moderator)

Ian Andrew

Karen Millie-James

Alison Morton

Debbie Young