WEATHER & WRITING

Current Work: Editorial and Planning

Listening to: Steve Wright in the afternoon - horoscopes!

Reading: The Pursuit of Love (Nancy Mitford)

First Thought for the Day:

Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)

Inspiration

Writers need to have some sort of stimulus for their writing. The trouble is sometimes the stimuli get in the way. I’ve been following the news stories of snow in the UK ever since I received a text from my son this morning. My three-year-old granddaughter has seen snow for the first time (and likewise for her 9 year old brother). So they have been building snowmen and tobogganing, something I used to do when my son was their age.

Here from my ancient casa in the hills of Le Marche, there is snow on the mountains, but today has been shrouded in low mist which looks eerie and spooky. It reminds me of the book (and the film) The Fog, which scared me so much that when I watched it I spent most of the time behind the cushion. Now that’s what I call good writing! But the weather does promote us to think about things a little differently and I know that it influences my writing. The mood of the skies seeps into my skin and through my veins and into my fountain pen. Though this morning at my journal writing time, all three of my favourite writing tools ran out of ink! Either that means that I’ve been writing a lot – or the ink is drying up because we’ve had the heating on a lot!

Planning a New Month

Its my review of last month, planning for next today. I’ve already sat down with My Man Friday and planned out his particular tasks for the month – he hates it but it makes me feel better so he goes with the flow. As I’ve mentioned before I made a sparkly new Writing Plan at the beginning of the year and I’m determined to keep on track. So, what am I doing here then? Well, writing my blog is one of the regular slots, so I’m fulfilling a little part of it.

The Weekend Review

The Book Worm

Deborah Moggach book, it was fabulous. Reading her website, she has had a lot of her novels serialised and I believe that she wrote the recent Ann Frank drama… shame we can’t see it over here. Now reading a Nancy Mitford – it’s absolutely wicked! Really gives you a sense of living in the era – quite racy!

The Goggle Box

Out of Africa – absolutely stunning scenery and the music was haunting. I first watched this about 20 odd years ago with my sister in Leicester Square.

Dancing with the Stars (A bit like Strictly but not quite!) Italian style which is rather guache and long winded!

And Finally, the Last Word of the Day:

propinquity

PRONUNCIATION:

(pro-PING-kwi-tee)

MEANING:

noun: Nearness in space, time or relationship.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin propinquitas (nearness), from prope (near).

USAGE:

"I believe that ... propinquity of descent, -- the only known cause of the similarity of organic beings, -- is the bond, hidden as it is by various degrees of modification, which is partially revealed to us by our classifications."

Charles Darwin; On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; 1859.