Control

It’s 42 degrees Celsius in Adelaide today (107.6 Fahrenheit – I had to look that one up 😊) and only the second day above 34 degrees, so not technically a heatwave yet.

Apparently, you need three days above 39 or five days above 34 to call it one. And although tomorrow is a ‘cool’ 35 degrees compared to today, we’ll enjoy the twenties again soon.
But it’s been long enough.

Unfortunately, much like many other things in life, we can’t control the weather. And unlike other things, we don’t generally try to control it either.

Some people also believe that one of those other things that can’t be controlled, is who we fall in love with. For my characters, of course, the opposite is true. Otherwise we’d still be waiting. Right?

But there is something to it, the fact that most things relating to characters develop organically, out of characteristics long settled. You see, once a character has been established in a writer’s mind (at least mine), it’s very difficult to change their characteristics. And naturally, their thoughts, actions and feelings stem from those traits.

So, who is really in control here?

Okay, still me.

But if we as writers are supposed to write about what we know (to some extent, anyway), isn’t what we know or can imagine based on life, if only a little bit? And isn’t life sometimes unpredictable and doesn’t it fall in the category of things we can’t really control?

We don’t have to settle this right now.

I think this heat is getting to me.