Thursday, April 2, 2020

How I'm Coping with Shelter-in-Place and how it affects my Creativity

 I’m currently working on a book I found when I looked at a flash drive I hadn’t seen for awhile.  There’s at least a half dozen novels I haven’t done anything with since I won NaNoWriMo with them months ago.  I’m currently working on “And Love Will Steer the Stars.” I’ll resume working on it in May, after Camp Nano is finished until July, when we’ll have another Camp Nano.  March 31st I’ll have to reread what I’ve done on Intergalactic Encounter  so that the new chapters I’ll write next month will mesh with the first few chapters I’ve already written.  

I may write in a disease next month.  Have the politicians utterly stupid. As a writer, I’m usually pretty creative, and I don’t get out much, but I would like to eat at a restaurant once in a while.  I’m of the generation who cooks, not this lazy generation who orders in. Eating out should be reserved for a treat, not your fallback position. Of course, I’m retired, so I have the time to cook.  Even so, I favor dishes that feed an army, so that I only have to actually cook twice or 3 times a week. Cooking is a kind of alchemy, where you apply heat to “ordinary” ingredients, and come up with something magical.  I even apply the alchemical principle to luftwaffles. I take mix, water, oil, and add pumpkin pie spice and vanilla.. But I want enchiladas, which I can’t make.  

Creativity is somewhat of a compulsion for me.  I noticed about a year ago that the elastic on several pairs of my slacks was getting loose, so I set about  crocheting belt loops for them. It’s a simple pattern, really, chain 3 or 4 inches long, and half double crochet around the chain, working a double crochet in each corner to square the corners.It should take no more than a couple rounds, maybe three, to complete.  I like to make at least seven belt loops for each pair of pants, Sew to the pants a few stitches at each end of the belt loop. If you’re lucky enough to have pants with existing belt loops, you can use these to measure how long to make your crocheted ones.  

What I’m hoping for is enough extra energy to do a little coloring.  Maybe if Facebook gets boring enough, I can swap out my Facebook time for some coloring time.  But the time I spend on Facebook isn’t ALL looking at memes. Outside of funny cats, and stupid human tricks, most of it is chatting with my friebds and acquaintances.   The evening of the 31st of March I’ll be handwriting what I’ll be dictating to my Dragon the next morning. I hope I write a lot.

Well, that is all for now.  If you are in Patricia’s circle of authors, you might write a blog about how you are coping with the shelter-in-place, and how it is affecting your creativity.

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