Nothing too serious today, my friends. And, despite the title of this entry, not really related to Dark Souls either! See, for those of you who don’t know, the “Praise the Sun!” line is a famous one from Dark Souls 1. One of our most beloved allies, Knight Solaire, says it a lot, as his covenant (an in-game faction that helps in multiplayer), the Warriors of Sunlight, worships the sun as a god. Me, I wouldn’t go that far, but in real life at the moment, I’m certainly glad to see the sun again.
We’ve had a long, long winter where I live. It’s near the end of April now, but it’s only been about 2 weeks or so since I’ve seen snow. The days are also getting longer, and…I’ll be damned if I don’t like this weather quite a bit!
Now, I live in the Northeastern US, and we have a reputation for very harsh winters. And I’m used to those, to an extent. I can get by pretty well in pretty cold weather, and even tough blizzards don’t phase me much. That doesn’t mean I much like the snow and cold, though. As I mentioned in a previous entry, it’s terribly inconvenient. More than that, however, I think it also hurt my productivity and positive attitude.
I suppose I need the sun a lot. While I don’t spend a lot of time outside, working at home most of the time, it really makes me feel better to see the sun. During the depths of winter, when the sun only popped out for a couple of hours at most, being drenched in perpetual darkness made me feel fairly pessimistic. With the sun only setting at like 8 or 9 PM, though, I feel much more confident in myself and the world around me. Maybe people really do need the sun to maintain their emotional equilibrium. While a snow-covered world may be beautiful, in its own way, nothing lifts my heart quite as much as seeing a shining sun in a clear blue sky above squares of green, healthy grass accompanied by, most of all, a nice breeze that’s not too cold. If anything, I don’t mind if it’s hot, either! I can deal with even extreme amounts of heat (though not humidity), but cold winds just seem to sap my good mood away. Perhaps it’s the freedom warm weather implies–aside from the inconvenience of snow days, even when the roads are clear I still have to put on warm coats and boots to go outside when it’s cold. During the spring and summer, however, I can just waltz out the door dressed in pretty much anything and be comfortable. As someone who so highly values his freedom, perhaps that little bit more of it warm weather represents is particularly appealing to me. It means I spend less time girding myself in thick clothes, which means I have more time to get stuff done.
And no matter how I’m dressed, heat makes it easier for me to get stuff done than cold. I found it hard to get out of bed when temperatures were very low–the worse the weather, the more I just wanted to stay snuggled up in my blankets indefinitely, making it very tough for me to get out of bed and actually start doing some work. And even when I did, I’d often be fairly tired and unable to work very quickly or well, as I sleep better in warm weather than cold. To top it all off, even on the occasions I got a decent night’s sleep and was able to get out of bed in a timely fashion, I found it harder to really get into a good reading or writing groove. My hands would get cold while I typed, even if I covered up the rest of my body with a blanket, and I spent more time trying to conserve heat than I did actually working. With the advent of warmer weather, however, I can plop myself down on my bed, my chair, wherever and start cranking out content quickly and efficiently. The less I worry about staying warm, the more I can concentrate on my work!
Maybe that’s why I hadn’t gotten as much done on Wayward Son–and my other projects–as I’d hoped over the past few months. So much cold weather lasting so long, with the concomitant damage to my positive outlook, hampered my productivity too. With warmer days finally arriving, maybe I’ll finally be able to pick up the pace on what I want to finish. It’s the 25th of April…let’s see if I can complete another chapter of Wayward Son, or at least make solid progress on it, by the 30th. Wish me luck…I’ll tell you how it goes in my next “Writing Log” entry 8)
Gunlord500 
[…] made a summer entry before–just last year, in fact. However, the weather is so glorious–and the winter so long–that I think another entry […]