It’s the dog days of summer. For those unfamiliar with that expression, here is its meaning from the Farmers’ Almanac: “The phrase is actually a reference to the fact that, during this time, the Sun occupies the same region of the sky as Sirius, the brightest star visible from any part of Earth and part of the constellation Canis Major, the Greater Dog. … They referred to this time as diēs caniculārēs, or “dog days.” The period this year began on July 3rd and goes until August 11th.
From Wikipedia comes this definition: “The dog days or dog days of summer are the hot, sultry days of summer. They were historically the period following the heliacal rising of the star system Sirius, which Hellenistic astrology connected with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck.”
Now, in much, of not most of North America, we are experiencing an extended heat wave, basically a whole month of temperatures where the daily high exceeds 30 Celsius. This isn’t the best time for creative activity for a writer, especially when writing often involves copious amounts of coffee and/or tea. Lethargy increases as the temperature increases. For a naturist author, the problem isn’t so bad as the lack of clothing helps to cool a writer down [or any other person for that matter]. It doesn’t do much for writing inspiration, but sacrifices must be made.
A confession now must be made – I am not actually doing much in the way of writing during these dog days of summer, naturist fiction writing that is. I am writing some non-fiction for a specific purpose that has a very limited target audience, a story spanning 51 years. The story is an illustrated tale of two pilgrims that began in 1970 and ends in October 2021. Both pilgrims get naked from time to time, but that doesn’t make its way into the story.
When the story is done [now at 40,000+ words] I will likely use it to create a naturist fiction story. After all, that is what a writer does – create fiction from threads of reality. Something tells me that this will be my NaNoWriMo project for November. But for now, I write the occasional blog post, go for walks, sunbathe in the backyard, drink ice-cold beverages, and cherish each moment of sunshine as I can before the season shifts to winter when I don’t mind being indoors and writing.