The Starks are assholes. Not because they’re all self-righteous jerks, but because I live in Alaska and their words ‘winter is coming’ has REAL meaning. Long summer days is what we get for enduring 6 months of cold, wind, snow, and darkness. This is what has kept me from converting 3 pretty good blog post ideas into actual blog posts this week. Today, I spent my entire day outside digging holes, building a shed and cooing at some goslings* that I’ll have to cull in the next couple of months. Really, I’d have liked to spent that time inside revising, and getting my WIP ready for beta readers and editors, but not really. It’s amazing out there. The temperature is just a little cool with a breeze making the physical labor that much more comfortable, and the fire-pit this evening feel cozy.
When it’s daylight almost 24 hours/day, it’s tough not to be outside basking in it and making the most of the accommodating weather. So, I’m not blogging much and not writing much, but I don’t feel bad about it. In a few months time, it’ll be blustery and anything needing to be done out of doors will be painful. That’s when I’ll be inside, aggressively plugging away at my computer, resolutely ignoring any outside chore.
* No, we didn’t name any of them Ryan, largely because goslings become geese and the humor would pass.
Photo courtesy: ME!
On Writing Dragons 
I completely understand what you mean. I live in the Yukon, and I’ve been avoiding my computer and house like the plague whenever possible in exchange for sun and forest and lakes while it’s still nice enough to do so.
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Oddly enough, I was just thinking about the “winter is coming” aspect of GRRM’s magnum opus. I was in my garden, of course, where some of the crops are already going to seed because the days are getting longer.
So many of our plants and animals and even insects have life cycles based on length of day and other seasonal aspects. Would it really work to have summer go on for decades? How would wildlife adapt?
For instance, if you’re hunting deer as a food source, you know that bucks rut in late fall, does are pregnant through the winter and give birth to fawns in spring. But how is it possible for deer to survive the seasons being decades long? Either generations of does give birth and somehow rear young during winter, when food is scarce, or deer stop reproducing during winter. In that case, how does the species survive being hunted all that time without young to replace their population?
You’re sorry you got me started on this, aren’t you?
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Not at all. It’s an interesting thing to think about. Especially if you are writing a fantasy where a season gets stretched out for years. Our summers can sometimes feel like winter time elsewhere, with the cold and rain, but the plants have adapted. Perhaps with an ever present winter only coniferous plants grow, having sap imbued with some sort of anti-freeze qualities. Similarly, perhaps the wildlife has adapted in some fashion, like a migration pattern or something. I don’t know. It’s fun to think about. All of it a good reminder that even living in the hard steel and iron heart of a city, we’re subject to the changing of the seasons. Even in the tropics the change of seasons can be felt with the coming of rain to signal reproduction time. Anyhow, as always thanks for sharing the thought it was fun!
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Enjoy the time you have out there!
Also, I just nominated you for the Liebster Award! Go check it out! https://officialgabrielpenn.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/liebster-award/
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I was named for something like this before, and I didn’t ‘accept’ it, in part because I hadn’t been at the blogging thing for a while, and partly because it had the feel of a chain letter. I’ve had some time to reflect on that and concluded these serve a purpose. So, I’ll accept this, even if it takes me a bit of time to work through it, and turn it around. Thanks.
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Awesome! 😀
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