Writing In The Time Of Covid

      Comments Off on Writing In The Time Of Covid

Writing In The Time Of Covid

What day is it? Is it a day that I need to wear pants? And if so why? A bathrobe and slippers seems perfectly adequate to me…Beer at 11am? Well, hell, why not? I’ve finished the coffee and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll offset it later with some aloe vera juice. I have to stay hydrated if I’m to write.I remember going to one local restaurant (where they specialize in deep frying virtually everything so you know it’s healthy) and a lady came by and brought glasses to our place settings, which she filled with water.In a few minutes another lady came and asked if we were ready to order. I said:“There’s already been a lady here. I was waiting for her to come back and take our order.”“Oh her? She’s just your Hydration Attendant.”“Hydration Attendant? Really? The “bus-person” et al, not an important enough term for what they did, hmmm. So yeah, when I write, I need a “Hydration Attendant”. However, that is usually me, so I can pick the style of “hydration” that suits my mood. I need “liquids” to write.Since October I’ve put out 9 books (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Zaslow+Crane&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 -If you care) and I expect as many as three more books published before September.I have a half-dozen short stories that I’m working on but I’m really working on the fourth book of my Martian Trilogy (yeah I know…I can count). There was more to cover in the story… Hell, there might even be a fifth book. At which point, I’ll probably stop referring to it as my “trilogy”.So, I’m forgetting what day of the week it is, not wearing pants except when I need to leave the house which is precious few times, and I’m making tex/mex chex mix (say THAT three times fast!), my own style of French bread and homemade potstickers. This is not good. I mean it sounds good. The chex mix was great. There’s nothing like “homemade”; and my potstickers are “killer”…And I am being a good little disease-fighter by staying out of the way of the disease to the best of my ability…which is home, in my bathrobe.However I think I speak for all but the most intentionally and/or habitually “sequestered” when I say that: We need an “anchor”… responsibilities…appointments-with real people, a job, even…all of this “in person and everything”. Otherwise we’ll all end up thinking: “Is today a “pants day”? …And then even if the answer is “yes”, we’ll think, “Well, f*ckit. My bathrobe is fine.”If my bathrobe ever gets infected, I’m in trouble.

BTW the visual I included is from “Guns Akimbo”. It was a hoot!

   

About Zaslow Crane

Zaslow Crane wrote his first Science fiction story when he was 11 This was after an uncle had given him a Charmin case full of sci fi paperbacks- all the old masters: A.E.Van Vogt, Cordwainer Smith, Heinlen, Bradbury, and dozens more. After that, he never looked back. Zaslow Crane has contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers over many years, and has been a contributing editor for a national magazine. He has been published a couple hundred times for non fiction. Regarding fiction, he writes primarily SciFi and was one of the creative talents behind Smoke and Mirrors, a parsec nominated podcast that "re-imagined" the Twilight Zone and, which ran for 2 1/2 years. He has written over two hundred short stories, 7 or 8 novellas and two novels, one of which "explains" a great many advancements in human technology. He likes mindless sort of work, because it frees that other part of his brain to work on story ideas, so if you see him, say, digging a ditch, you'll know that he’s really writing. He lives in a tiny house on a hill in Central California. His home overlooks the ocean - IF you're willing to stand on tip toes and crane your neck. Just a bit.