Writing in sunshine

The weather shouldn't make that much difference to a writer, should it? I mean, we tap away indoors most of the time anyway. But somehow, writing in a sunny room makes me write more positive prose, and quicker. I write in a room that faces due South, which all the main rooms do, but this year the glooms of winter seemed to have spilled over onto the summer. It's just light levels. Some of us need a boost in the summer to get us through the winter, and this year hasn't just been rainy, it's been cold and dark. I look at my writing, even my blog, and it's got a layer of grump over it in places that don't normally inflict me in the summer. Hopefully we'll get a good shot of the yellow stuff to get us through the next winter.


I spent yesterday writing, walking in said yellow stuff and reading an unpublished book by one of my Full Nine Yarns colleagues, Nicola Vincent-Abnett. The book was simply stunning. She has taken a truly difficult subject and made it so readable that after the first third I didn't put it down. Missed my dinner, it was that good. The main character is so real, so believable, I was rooting for her after the first 50 pages. Unlike lots of books with a character of a therapist, hers is believable, and took roughly the approach I might have. It makes me wonder what the other books in the shortlist are like. Why isn't this writer published? It doesn't make sense...one of the best books I've read all year. 


Apart from that, not much to report except A Baby's Bones is looking like a proper book, with just a few scenes to fill in before I hit the historical strand, which is easy because Vincent (the narrator) has been yammering at me through the contemporary strand. With washing in the fresh air, the chickens working harder and harder to break out of the yard and some of the kids off on an outing, it should be a good day for writing.