As we all settle into our stay-at-home routines for the long haul, I thought we could share strategies for coping with isolation. Here’s how some Sisters and Misters are keeping their creative spirit alive. Feel free to share your coping strategies in the comments section.
Carolyn Wilkins:
Carve out a consistent time for creative work. Do not allow yourself to get distracted by the many online events that are taking place currently. Guard your creative time and stick to a routine - same time same place every day, come hell or high water.
Cultivate the mindset that your creativity matters - now more than ever. It’s easy to be fooled into thinking that our creative work is small, insignificant or irrelevant in these turbulent times. But nothing could be further from the truth. Now more than ever, walking our talk and honoring our gifts as creatives matters. We and our work are beacons of light in this troubled world. We are needed!
Ang Pompano:
I’m hearing that for a lot of us the words aren’t coming as easy in these stressful days. Sometimes a social media post is the perfect springboard to get those creative juices going for more serious writing.
I usually make only one post a day and never post memes. Sometimes I try to give useful first-hand information such as what to expect when you go through the Covid 19 testing line. But usually I try to make the post humorous because laughing releases stress and that in itself keeps the creative juices going. Laughing also makes us feel that we have a little bit of control over the situation. They say laughter increases infection-fighting antibodies and improves resistance to disease.
I usually start with a “What If” question. What if a bald guy wanted to get in on the Cut Your Own Bangs Craze? I put up a picture of me cutting my hair. I think some people thought that post was funny because of the reality behind it. They realized that sooner or later they were going to need a haircut. I hope that besides making them laugh I showed them that at a time like this you do what you have to do.
Lorraine Sharma Nelson:
Kill two birds with one stone. Ordering books from independent bookstores keeps them in business and provides you with valuable reading material -- both of which are important to our collective psyches, now more than ever.
This one's really important. Fresh air and exercise. I'm still struggling to make exercise a part of my at-home daily life, even though I feel so much better when I break down and do it. I hope you're more diligent.
Finally, and this helps me most of all. Don't ever forget that we're all in this together. All of us. The entire world. Never have we been more united as a people than we are right now, during this global pandemic. People everywhere, from all walks of life, from all races and religions, are reaching out across social media platforms with one common goal in mind: to connect with other people. And that's a beautiful thing.
I noticed that Sharon Healy-Yang has been posting song lyrics on Facebook and asked her where she got the idea:
Well, it all started even before sheltering in place. Yang and I were driving home and I heard Natalie Cole singing "Pink Cadillac." The lyrics "Love is bigger than a Honda and bigger than a Subaru" just struck me as a wonderfully insouciant metaphor—and accurate. I thought it would be fun to share lyrics that intrigued me, made me laugh, made me think. I also thought it would be fun to see how many people would recognize the lyrics, since I have so many friends with so many different interests on FB. And I thought it would be an interesting way to reveal myself to others as well as to have their responses reveal themselves to me.
For the record, Sharon reports that Ray Thomas's "Friends"(💓) and the Supremes' "You're What's Missing in My Life"got the most “Loves.”
Frances McNamara:
For myself, there's no excuse for not completing my writing projects, and it's good to retreat from the onslaught of useful and useless information to that separate place in the imagination where our worlds and characters exist. It's like a very very long snowstorm. We need to sit back, take a breath, and feel cozy that we're inside safe and warm. I'm such an introvert I don't mind it so much yet. I do have lots of family who call, text, email, zoom, facetime, etc. And I even have my sister as a roommate so I'm not alone.
Several people mentioned seeking inspiration from other writers. Here are two quotations sent by J.A. Mcintosh:
“As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.” Toni Morrison
"The place in which I'll fit will not exist until I make it." James Baldwin
I’ll close with this sinfully rich recipe for pumpkin fudge cake from Carol Goodman Kaufman — the birthday cake of choice for all three of her children.
A Very Suspicious Pumpkin Fudge Cake
Serves 12
Could that white powder on top of it be cocaine? Heroin? This cake could get you arrested!
Ingredients:
Cocoa
1 cup butter or coconut oil
5 oz. semisweet chocolate
1 3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 can pumpkin
1/4 cup coffee liqueur
Confectioners sugar
Directions:
Preheat to 350°. Coat a bundt pan with vegetable spray and dust with cocoa.
Place butter and chocolate in microwave for about 1 minute, or until melted (Microwave ovens differ in power, so it's better to start slow to avoid danger of burning).
Sift flour, baking powder, soda, and salt.
In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar.
Add melted chocolate mixture and beat.
With mixer at low, add flour mixture alternately with pumpkin.
Blend in liqueur.
Pour into pan. Bake 1 hour 15 minutes.
Cool on rack 45 minutes.
At last possible second before serving, sift some confectioner's sugar over the top.
Amherst author Lisa Lieberman writes the Cara Walden series of historical mysteries based on old movies and featuring blacklisted Hollywood people on the lam in dangerous international locales. Her books hit the sweet spot between Casablanca and John le Carré. Trained as a modern European cultural and intellectual historian, Lieberman abandoned a perfectly respectable academic career for the life of a vicarious adventurer through perilous times. She has written extensively on postwar Europe and lectures locally on efforts to come to terms with the trauma of the Holocaust in film and literature. She is Vice President of the New England chapter of Sisters in Crime and a member of Mystery Writers of America.