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.