Question Again

[Hucklebubba]

. . .since I'm fairly sure I've used "Question" as a thread title at least once before, and possibly for every thread I've ever started.

Anyway: Does anyone besides me find it extremely difficult to do anything constructive or creative during the cold months?

If I recall correctly, early November was the last time I wrote (and completed) anything of significance, and it's been even longer since I did any drawing.

And now I will pause briefly and launch a pre-emptive strike against the most obvious suggestion: Hypochondriatic disease-seeker that I am, and with the internet ever-ready to encourage me, I already know about Seasonally-Affective Disorder up one side and down the other.

But I don't think that's it. I don't feel depressed per se, just a skosh on the lethargic side. And wanting either for winter to stop existing, or for someone to start manufacturing reliable and economical stasis tubes.

So. . .just wondering if I can get a "hear hear!" from anyone, or if I am, in fact, part bear.

[pfrsue]

Yes and no.

From a writerly standpoint, the winter months tend to make it hard for me to kick-start the muse, but once I do get started, I can churn out some halfway decent work.

(Of course, when the muse isn't biting, I seem to spend a lot of time sitting around reading books and ignoring the dishes and laundry.)

Weirdly enough I think it helps that I have several projects going at once. In the summer I'd feel overwhelmed by that, but at this time of the year it means that I have a much greater chance of finding something I can work on each day - even if it isn't the same something I worked on the day before. Variety keeps me interested.

I also get tired much more easily and my bedtime seems to deteriorate to pre-kindergarten levels.

So yeah. "Hear hear." And "there there."

[Spiderdancer]

pfrsue said:

(Of course, when the muse isn't biting, I seem to spend a lot of time sitting around reading books and ignoring the dishes and laundry.)

LOL. One of the better mixed metaphors I think I've heard. "Ow! Make this dang muse let go of my leg! Bad Argiope!"

Oops. Argiope is not a muse name. It's a genus name for, you know, one of those animals I'm fixated on. Perhaps I was thinking of Calliope.

I do some of my best fiction writing during fall and early winter, but once we get into the holidays it's hard to do anything but lay around and eat. I'm definitely having trouble motivating myself toward writing reviews right now, even though I'm watching just as many things as I was before.

[Hucklebubba]

I'm beginning to think that maybe my constructivity problem has less to do with the season--though I still maintain that as a factor--and more to do with me rearranging things so that my computer and drafting board are both within easy wheeled-chair-scooting range of my PS2. Mindless entertainment is just so much more alluring than something that's ultimately more rewarding but requires effort.

And now, a completely off-topic question for Shalen, inspired in part by her sig: I've read somewhere or heard it said somewhere (hee!) that it's improper to refer to tarantulas as spiders. Like, tarantulas get their own little thing off separate from the rest of the spider kingdom. True? Something that everyone but me already knows?

[Genetic Mishap]

I have a similar problem, though it's less a seasonal see-saw and more like each season's worse than the last. Like, a seasonal spiral into a steep depression.

Getting trapped in a truckstop parking lot during rush hour doesn't help.