Day 17 NaBloPoMo at yeah write guest blogger: yeah write editor Natalie DeYoung

Weather

We’ve been having an unprecedented heat wave. Coastal Southern California features an ordinarily lovely Mediterranean climate, which means warm summers and cool rainy winters. Spring and fall don’t really exist here, except as tapering off points for winter and summer. So usually, November is pleasantly temperate as we gear up for the holidays. 

Not this year.

Everyday, I wake up and check the weather, hoping for a break in the 80+, sometimes 90 degree days. Temperatures nearly 20 degrees higher than average have made my skin crack and my body ache for relief from this unnatural, unseasonable heat. The idea of roasting a Thanksgiving turkey in my poorly ventilated kitchen makes me want to weep and eat a coconut popsicle, fantasizing about autumn foliage.

Writing

I spent ten years of my life in the academic world preparing for a career there. Ten years dissecting Shakespeare and writing about Vermeer’s luminous glazing. When I set out to analyze art, both literary and fine, I am confident. The words pour from me with casual facility and a deft touch.

When I started blogging, however, I experienced a writing identity crisis. Blogging proved vastly different from my research on gender identity in the novels of Jane Austen. My words about life sounded stuffy to my own ears; my skill with a compound sentence proved useless. Nothing flowed onto the page like when I wrote about Mary Shelley’s place in the Romantic Canon or Berthe Morisot’s plein air work.

Yet I remember in the early days of school how I struggled to piece together a coherent essay on Walden. I flunked the very first writing exam I took as a graduate student—and I don’t flunk. It took years of daily writing to compose a fluid research paper with any degree of ease.

Then one day while writing a paper on medieval literature, I realized it was easy. 

I’m not at that place yet with my other writing, a place where blogging and essay writing comes easily. But I write every day. I know it will come. 

Change

Yesterday, I was writing some copy for a furnishing company and saw that I was assigned descriptions of photographic artwork. Quality and subject matter came to life on the page, the task done swiftly. I smiled to myself. So there’s some use for that skill, after all.

Yesterday I also awoke to a soft breeze and a twenty degree drop in temperature. The five day forecast predicts a cooling trend. 

I keep writing. Eventually, the weather changes.

*****

Today is badge day here at yeah write. Not only are we blogging for 30 days with NaBloPoMo, we are also running our regularly scheduled writing challenge. If you’d like to submit your traditional blog anecdote or personal essay, grab a yeah write #136 challenge grid badge from the sidebar. Make sure you review our submission guidelines before posting, then link up with us on Tuesday. We look forward to reading your A-game writing!

It’s also random rownie weekend. Visit some new-to-you blogs and leave a few thoughtful comments. Blogging everyday takes a lot out of us, and we could all use a little encouragement.

We announced Week 2’s prizes at Friday’s moonshine grid, so make sure you pop over and see if you’re one of the lucky winners! Hey, while you’re at it, go ahead and link up over there, they’re a fun crowd.

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