I was reading a book on organic gardening this morning and it mentioned the effect of the moon on planting. I remembered a feature I'd written a few years ago for Your Garden magazine about the Italians' method of gardening by the phases of the moon. They take it very seriously here and there are even calendars printed with a planting guide and moon almanac.
It got me wondering, so I have been doing a bit of research. I discovered that there is more than anecdotal evidence that crime increases during a full and new moon. A team of psychologists at the University of Miami studied fifteen years of homicide statistics relating to Miami Dade County and found a clear correlation between murder and the moon's phases, with a sharp increase during a full or new moon and a decline during the other two phases. they repeated it for Ohio's Cuyahoga county in case the results werea fluke but found the same thing.
What has this to do with writing? Apart from adding a bit of interest to one of the novels I am writing by adding a bit of crime during a full moon, I was thinking how the moon affects writing and creativity in general. Are people more productive during a particular moon phase? Do the words flow more easily by the light of the silvery moon? (The rhymes certainly don't, if "moon, June, spoon" is anything to go by!) I am going to start keeping an eye on my own output and see if the inconstant moon has any effect.
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