“You know the preacher likes the cold; he knows I’m going to stay.”
I’m sure you’re all familiar with that line from the classic rock song “California Dreamin’”
It popped into my head the other day as I was preparing to walk the dogs on a 36 degree, drizzling day. We have a different cold here in the Pacific Northwest, specifically Western Washington. It’s a damp cold. It’s a cold that seeps into your clothing, somehow, some way, and finds the marrow of your bones. It’s a cold that sucks the last remnants of warmth from you, leaving you chilled throughout the winter.
I know, I know, it’s colder in other places. I’ve lived in Vermont and minus twenty, the snow glistening in the sunshine. I’ve lived in Alaska, minus forty, moon dogs floating in the air, defying logic, air crystals frozen, other worldly type of stuff. But good God, there ain’t enough fleece to keep you warm, in Olympia, when the skies are weeping and your breath plumes, day in, day out, dampness the default setting for everything you see . . . everything you touch . . . and how many more goshdarned days until April?
That might be the first time I’ve ever written/typed goshdarned. What’s up with that? I can cuss like a sailor, so goshdarned stretches the limits of believability and authenticity, don’t you think?
I think about that when working on a novel. Is this authentic? Is it believable? Supernatural thrillers like I write, The Shadow Series, I’m pushing the limits of believability right out of the gate, so I want my dialogue to be believable if nothing else, you know?
Of course you do!
You do and I do, for better or for worse, till death do us part, and there goes my mind again, taking another side-trip down the Word Association Lane, wondering where I’ll end up next, might be a dead end or it might be the beginnings of a story, or novel, a seed planted in the womb of fertility, growth or abortion, picketers around the abortion clinic, shouting their slogans, anti-protestors opposite them, shouting their slogans, no one really listening, a wall of sound, and that takes us to Phil Spector, Motown, 1964, music history in the making, smoke-filled studios, engineers, experimenting with a sound soon to become classic, and isn’t this fun, playing with words, creating on the fly, no nuns to slap my hands if my grammar is broken?
You bet it is!
Happy 2021 to you all! Let’s rebound in a big way, put this darkness behind us, warm up after the cold, put those preachers out of business. 😊
Bill
“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”
Billybuc
Artistry With Words 
I have words pop into my head all the time. I only wish I’d write them all down. Who knows when I might be able to use them. The ones I do happen to write down usually end up in a poem. Anyway hope the reno’s are going well for you. When you’re done my bathroom and kitchen are in great need of a renovation 🙂
Have a great week, Bill.
Thanks Susan! The bathroom should be done today, thank God! The kitchen will be messier, but it won’t be as difficult to do. What a mess!!!
Happy 2021 Bill! How do your deal with the issue of consistency of voice from character to character–they must live in your bones I would think
Happy 2021, Audrey! It’s an interesting question and yes, it is a struggle. I have to go back and read the characters in previous novels. It’s one reason I enjoy writing a series, because it is easier to stay consistent from character to character.
Happy New Year Bill. It’s gonna be a cold winter here as well. But as long as we tread with caution outside it’ll be a safe year for all.
I agree with the dialogue delivery…it ought to be so well minced into the character to make it believable.
Happy New Year, Ruchira! I hope this year is a wonderful one for you and your family. Thank you!
Happy, Happy New Year, Bill!! I have words, lyrics from songs, old saying and even older movie/TV show quotes pop into my head all the time. My mind works, literally, in mysterious ways. So, can totally relate. That said, just happy to pop in and catch up with you a bit. Have a wonderful evening now, my friend 🙂
Janine, so good to hear from you. I hope 2021 brings some normalcy for all of us. I miss hearing from you weekly. I hope your family is well. Take care!
Happy New Year to you also Bill.. Goshdarned, I like that word.. …. I watched a film the other evening it was set in the 1920’s and the prim lady’s amount to a swear word was to come out with ‘Horse-feathers’ 🙂 I liked that too.. 🙂
Keep pushing the bar on unbelievable Bill I have witnessed some paranormal things in real life that people would think UNBELIEVABLE.. 🙂 too…
Glad your writing is coming along my friend..
Sending hugs to you and your good lady… Have a Happy Healthy one my friend ❤
Sue, I’ve heard of horse feathers too. I love it! What a great way to curse. If I could only remember to do that. lol My past catches up with me from time to time, I’m afraid.
I am a believer in the paranormal. There is so much we do not know or understand about this universe we live it.
Happy Wednesday to you, dear friend. Blessings always!
Bill you should then look into some of cloud categories Such as Paranormal, and Trance Communications, etc… And a post with a few links which may enhance your Paranormal studies a post I did way back In 2011… 🙂 may interest you.. https://suedreamwalker.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/a-day-in-the-life-of-medium/
All the best and I have been saying Horse Feathers alot today! when I went wrong with my knitting and had to undo several rows to see what I had done wrong lol.. Happy Thursday tomorrow.. 🙂
Thank you for the suggestions, Sue. I’ll take a look at them later today. In the meantime, I hope your Thursday is filled with wonder and good health.
Hugs from across the Pond!
bill
Bill
I’m a Brit, and very familiar with the cold you’re talking about, a bone gnawing cold most people who haven’t experienced it wouldn’t believe.
I can remember it being twenty below freezing in Norway, we were in the Arctic and it was so cold I had to put potatoes into boiling water just to soften them up enough to peel, but I still felt warmer than the bone chilling wet that the English pennines can deliver in an afternoon!
Those hills aren’t big, but they kill more than mountains do with the cold!
I don’t miss the cold.
For sure, Lawrence, those who have lived in the UK know exactly what I’m talking about. I think you live in a wonderful part of the world. I would love to see it one day, if I could figure out how to avoid that long air flight. lol
Wishing you a very Happy New Year. Hope this year brings more luck and success.
Thank you, Nightlake, and Happy New Year to you as well. Blessings always!
Well, Bill – I’ve been for a walk on a winter’s day, and let me tell you, the sky is gray. I hope that’s not a picture of what’s to come in 2021. I’d like to think we’re moving on from the cold and dark of 2020. Anyway, just wanted to wish you and Bev a Happy New Year regardless of the outcome. Maybe we should get down on our knees and pray!
William, one way to look at it, I suppose, is 2021 can’t be worse than 2020, right? But that seems like tempting fate, doesn’t it?
Blessings to you always!
Great reminiscences and hopefully the promise for better tomorrows. Peace
Manatita, it would be lovely if things just settled down a bit. I’m not sure it’s going to happen in 2021, but it would be lovely if it did.
You won’t become like a sailor, my friend. Is not that so?
It is so, Michael my friend. No life on the seas for me.
It can be really cold & damp in the UK, too. Today, I’m wearing 4 layers of clothing, plus my Japanese belly warmer, and I’m still cold! A Swedish person once told me that they never felt cold in their own country, as it was a much drier cold there, but whenever they visited England they were frozen even though the actual temperature was so much higher than they were used to. So all I can say, Bill, is that I feel a great empathy with you about your weather in Olympia.
All best wishes for 2021 my dear friend, which I’m sure I’ve already said to you several times, but if I say it often enough, it might bring the sun out. Everything seems a long slog at the moment in a world that has gone mad. We can only wish for better.
Sarah, from everything I’ve read, UK weather is almost identical to that in Olympia. You have a kindred spirit here, my friend. I need Spring to arrive sooner rather than later. The walks with the dogs are brutal this winter.
All is well here, my friend. Happy 2021 to you as well. I hope we both come out of this mess healthy and ready for a touch of happiness.
Hugs from chilly Olympia!
I enjoyed this and found myself smiling ear to hear as you followed your word association train. Because there are so many linear posts these days with folks grabbing SEO and trying for blog of the year, it’s nice to read random thoughts!
I couldn’t live in Washington with the rain and the cold. Haven’t been there since I was a young girl, but I have heard stories of the cold and bit being worse than VT/NH cold. I’ll stay here and deal with this one, which is a bitter cold at times but has been good to us this year!
Sha, I write SEO for companies, and it bores me to tears. I write randomly like this to free my muse so she can fly like she was intended to since the first human jotted down their thoughts.
I hope you are well. May this weekend be filled with joy for you.
I hope the same for you Bill. I’m expecting a very nice weekend!
Winter is definitely the time to reflect on the past and to plan for our future. I have been so business the past year. My county has seen 3 people die of Covid 19 this past year and I knew all three of them and yet I still remain optimistic enough to purchase fruit trees and transplant maple seedlings into my yard!
I love that optimism, Donna. Thank you for sharing that. Best wishes to you. Stay safe and healthy in 2021. Better days are coming.
Happy New Year Bill! That damp coldness can just be really miserable and we have had miserable times lately. But this year will be better, I know it will 🙂
I’m counting on you being correct, Andrea! We all need the brightness and warmth to return, my friend. Thank you and Happy New Year to you!