Rising Damp

It's that time of year -- when it's too warm for the furnace to turn on and too cold to wear less than three sweatshirts. It's also raining and has been doing so for the past 2 days. Pretty soon mold will be growing on the north side of us -- unless it doesn't grow on people who are shivering. It's somehow colder now than when it's -20 in the middle of winter. No damp to speak of when it's -20. Then even the snow squeaks.

If I were wearing a pair of mittens along with the three sweatshirts, that might be an excuse for not getting anything done on Spence.

Sadly, that's not the excuse.

In fact there is no excuse other than that I can't think what he's going to do next. I am intending to send him skipping ahead this afternoon -- off to the land of palm trees where I hope he will finally get his act together and DO SOMETHING. Which I should have done yesterday but somehow didn't.

Why is that? It's not a matter of waiting for inspiration. If I'd waited for inspiration on any of the other 50 odd books, I would be still waiting. It's not a matter of inspiration, really. It is, however, a matter of the well running dry. Sometimes you just have to have patience, to wait (dithering) while it fills again. Which brings us back to rising damp. Moisture is accruing on the story walls, but other than that, um, there's not much there.

But what there is is what I've got. So I'm going to go sit with the well and watch the damp rise --and do what I can with it. Maybe I'll find inspiration in it. But what I'm really looking for is the thread of the story.

Writing is easy and fun for me. Not.