A Season You May Not Know

[Peg Herring]

I know not what others encounter, but in the Midwest, October is Fly Season. As a sort of farewell to good weather, flies show up in large numbers, apparently get drunk on cider that's set too long, and harass humans until we go half mad with useless attempts at extermination.

What does this have to do with writing? Well, you try keeping your plot coherent when you're being dive-bombed, buzzed, and crawled upon. I begin every day with a hand-vac and clean up whoever I can catch, but that's just pure silliness on my part. They crawl out of the walls and windowsills as soon as the engine shuts down, snickering at my pitiful efforts. When I sit down to write, the fun begins. Some aim for my nose or my glasses, and its counting coups time. The bravest stay for a second or two, and I can picture them telling their friends in the window later, "She just missed me!" Others fly into my hair and provide a few sets of insect music, mostly improvisational buzz.

Writing is interrupted periodically while I grab the vacuum and try to reduce their numbers. Again, I can hear laughter mixed with other snide fly noises. Some of them get so hysterical that they beat themselves against the computer screen, lost in hilarity.

The reason I tell you this is that when fly season was mentioned at a Bouchercon coffee klatch last year, some people had no idea that the phenomenon exists. I guess that puts Midwest writers at a disadvantage. The harassment is a hardship on us that others don't have to suffer.

So if I don't get a lot done during fly season, you must understand. Things will be fine once the cold catches up with the little demons, at least until that mid-winter thaw, when the sun beats of the glass and calls them all back to their evil ways.