Summer Suns are a-Glowing' with Miriam Drori

It's time again for my Monday Moments slot and the summer theme of 'Summer Suns are a Glowin'.

Today my friend, Miriam Drori, has popped in to tell me how the summer affects her writing. Miriam has a great chance of getting more warm sunny days than I tend to do in Scotland, as you'll see in her excellent photos, but I'll let her describe to you why that's the case...

Hello Nancy and Nancy Jardine’s readers. It’s always a pleasure to be here.

Here in Jerusalem, we have perfect weather. That’s not to say we don’t complain about it. After all, every country has rain that falls on drying clothes and washes out sporting events. But of the options – rain all year round, rain mostly in summer or rain only in winter – we have the last and I think it’s the best.

Nancy says: That sounds like a perfect combination to me! 

Courtesy of Miriam Drori- Miriam writing in her garden

In addition, Jerusalem, being high up, has better heat than, for example, Tel-Aviv. It’s dry and usually cools down in the evenings.

All this makes Jerusalem a perfect place to write outside – in the summer. And that’s even truer when you have a garden as fantastic as ours, planned and maintained by OH and enjoyed by us both.

So I pick a spot in the shade, put my phone down beside me and sit down with my notebook and pen. Yes, the phone makes noises sometimes, but I can ignore them in a way I can’t ignore notifications on the computer when I’m typing on said machine. It’s to do, I think, with the fact that they flash up in front of me or beep straight at me. An email, a Facebook message. I must just have a quick look. An hour later, it’s time for lunch. Where did all the time go?

In the garden, I look at the phone during a natural break. I control the phone. When I’m typing, the computer controls me.

Nancy: Ah, such control, Miriam! 

What am I writing this summer? I’m finishing off a project in which I’ve been collaborating with Emma Rose Miller, joint author of Five Guns Blazing. It’s based on the painting The Women Friends by Klimt and the first novella in the series will be published by Crooked Cat Publishing early in 2017.

I’m writing blog posts, of which this is one.

I’m writing short stories.

And I plan to return to three unfinished novels. I don’t plan to finish all three this summer!

Courtesy of Miriam Drori

I look up from my writing to watch the fish lazily swimming around the stalks below round green leaves and pink flowers. There’s a gold-coloured fish, a silver one and a red one. There are smaller fish, born in our pond. Water trickles into the pond. Nature is all around. If I ignore the sound of traffic on the road below, this is perfect.

About Miriam:

Despite having lived in Jerusalem for much longer than her previous home town of London, Miriam Drori still likes the flavour of salt ’n’ vinegar crisps and always adds milk to her tea.

Following careers in computer programming and technical writing, she’s been writing fiction for about twelve years. She’s the author of Neither Here Nor There, a romance set mostly in Jerusalem, and is excited about the soon-to-be-published, above-mentioned novellas. As well as being published by Crooked Cat, Miriam also edits for them.

When she’s not writing, Miriam loves doing Israeli folk dancing.

Find Miriam at:   http://miriamdrori.com

 Neither Here Nor There 

Thank you for contributing to my summer theme, Miriam. It's great to see your lovely photos and to read that there's someone, like you, who has such great control over NOT using the computer for writing! I confess that I hardly ever write with pen and paper these days but it makes more sense in summer since I can't ever get the shading correct to do writing outside on my computer. The bleeping of Facebook and other things  - I agree are a terrible distraction. 

You're always welcome, Miriam, so pop in again soon and give us an update to your summer plans. 

Today is meant to be one of my few writing days of the week but it's actually warm and sunny outside, my grand kids are already physically popping in and out of my house and garden (living next door makes that so easy with open doors) but I'm definitely aiming to do a few good hours of writing today! 

Slainthe!