Grab your gun and bring in the cat. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I love the rain. The sound of it falling on the roof of my sun room*, the smell, being out in it…there’s something clean about it. I turn off my music on mornings like this one and just listen to it falling, dripping off the edge of the roof, splashing on the deck. It’s as close to being zen as I can get.
Weather is an important part of story telling. Not the most important, maybe, but the right weather creates an atmosphere that can’t be missed. And I’m not talking about the stereotypical ‘rain when it’s sad, sunny when it’s happy’ shit. That’s lazy. I mean the soft fall of snow piling up outside during a funeral, making the hush of the service spread out into the world. The pitiless revealing glare of the sun to someone who has secrets. The never-ending overcast sky of a planet shielded from attack from orbit. The cold breeze against the your skin at the edge of the world.
Today’s Monday Challenge is to write your weather. Go outside if you have to, taste it in the air. Hear the way it changes the street, smell the rain or the dust on the breeze. Feel it on your skin.
Then come back inside and write about it. Tell me what it is, either on your own or through a character.
What do you hear?
Nothing but the rain.
*Yes, ironically named, I know.
Bare Knuckle Writer 