Fall Fever

Some people get spring fever. My dictionary defines this condition as "a listless, lazy, or restless feeling commonly associated with the beginning of spring."


I don't feel that way in the spring. Spring is for cleaning out closets and washing windows. Spring is for planting flowers.

I get that lazy, restless feeling in the fall.

I want to do something, but I don't know quite what. i start a book and put it down. I begin a letter, but I don't know what to day. I watch a TV show and switch channels halfway through, not caring how it ends.


I  admit that my writing has suffered. Plots swirl in my mind, but they don't make it to my fingers.  I daydream of making the NY Times best-seller list, but I can't force myself to Tweet and Blog and do all the other things I should be doing to promote my books. 

Maybe it's the weather: warm, with just a hint of chill in the air. Or the leaves turning scarlet, gold and purple, changing the landscape, telling me that summer is over and winter is on its way. 

This might well be the last nice day. Enjoy it. There will be time for work when it is cold and sleeting and the outdoors doesn't beckon. 

Maybe I'll go for a walk. 

Maybe I'll take a nap.

To paraphrase Mark Twain: "It's fall fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it  you want--oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!"