This is my very favorite season. The air is so finely crisp and bright and cool, and the color of the dying leaves makes me ache and want to shout all at the same time. It is the best of all seasons for walking, and horseback riding, and climbing, and—oh, trout fishing, I suppose—think A River Runs Through It—and yet I’m writing a book, therefore I’m doing a lot of sleeping.

I read once about C.S. Lewis’s usual writing day.  Breakfast (served to him by someone else), then a few hours of work in the morning, followed by a snack at 11 (brought to him by someone else), then a glorious afternoon walk, then tea (someone else made it and brought it to him in his study—how I adore this concept) and then perhaps a bit more work, then conversation with friends and at last supper, music, reading, bed.

What a sane way to spend a day, and to write.  How I wish I were even halfway sane. But my own process of generating ideas—and more particularly, figuring out how to commit those ideas to paper—seems to require a great deal of subconscious work, which translates to a little bit of actual writing, a lot of staring out the window, and an overwhelming urge to sleep.

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