Writers gotta write… but when they’re not writing, many like to keep their creative juices flowing by getting crafty or taking up a variety of hobbies.
For me, that means when I’m not writing short mystery and horror fiction, I build, design, and decorate dollhouses and miniature rooms, many of which highlight my love of Halloween spookiness. (See samples, https://candidcanine.blogspot.com ).
For other writers, keeping their creativity flowing means picking up a paintbrush, stitching needlepoint, or playing music between their fictional projects.
New Jersey native and Tennessee transplant Lois Winston (Cozy Mystery Author | Lois Winston) turned her love of crafting and her craft of choice, needlepoint, into a 25-year career as she wrote for craft magazines and created her own designs for kit manufacturers. Then, after working at a craft-industry trade show, she says she had a series of vivid dreams that led to her new love—fiction writing.
“Normally, I don’t remember my dreams, but this one not only stayed with me, but it also continued to unfold each night like the chapters of a book,” she recalls. “I eventually decided to write it down. A few weeks later, I had a 50,000-word romance. Although I quickly learned the book was ‘unpublishable,’ I had fallen in love with writing fiction.”
A decade later, her love of crafts inspired her first published book, Talk Gertie to Me, a chick-lit novel (with a crafting-obsessed mother), followed a year later by a romantic suspense featuring a doll designer heroine. She’s since won multiple writing awards, is a USA Today and Amazon bestseller, and published 15 books and three novellas in her long-running Anastasia Pollack crafting mystery series, which features – what else?- but a magazine crafts editor turned reluctant amateur sleuth.
Tennessean Kaye George (https://kayegeorge.com) played violin in community orchestras in several cities, and also composed and arranged music for quartets. Between her writing projects, she finds playing for her family a good way to keep her creative self inspired. Along with her Comfy Cat mysteries, the People of the Wind Neanderthal mystery series, and her humorous Imogene Duckworthy mysteries. The Agatha Award nominee also naturally wrote a mystery series featuring a musician. The Cressa Carraway books will be re-released next year.
“They (music and writing) are both ways of communication,” she says. “I've read that instrumental music is the purest form of communication. It tells stories and conveys emotions without words, going directly to your heart. Words are a more elaborate way of imparting thoughts, emotions, stories, and logic. They both attempt to connect with an audience, and it's an intense thrill when they do.”
For Michigan author Jaime Johnesee, both art and writing became the perfect creative and personal outlets after a mystery illness forced her to leave her dream profession as a zoologist and senior bird keeper at the Detroit Zoo. Later diagnosed with lupus, she found being creative in both mediums helped her cope with the ups and downs of the disease. She is the author of the Bob the Zombie series and the Samantha Reece Mystery series, and the project manager and co-author of Revelations, a multi-author horror-fantasy trilogy.
“Writing saved my life and gave me an outlet for my pain,” she explains. “The shifters virus in my series represents the lupus in my own life. In 2018, I was unable to write. I was in severe writer's block, which made my depression worse when attempting to write. I couldn't write again until 2022. I turned to art to cope. In 2020, I began learning to draw. I have a more cartoon style, but it makes me happy, and that's the point, I believe.”
She now makes bookmarks from chains and charms, paints in acrylic, and creates digital drawings.
Being multi-creative made all the difference, she says: “These days, I use my art to create and inspire the short stories I write. I make them available free to read on my site. I was grateful I could express my pain through paint as well as words.”
Her best suggestion for writers? Don’t limit yourselves.
“Some use yarn, some sew, some build, some craft, whatever you do, give yourself more than one creative outlet,” she says. “That way, if you are blocked and unable to write, you can still express yourself. You can't create if you are burnt out. If you have nothing to create from, be gentle with yourselves as you try new art forms. Please take care of your creative well and refill it often with books, art, music, movies, and games.”
Good advice. What are you creating today?
Christine Verstraete’s short stories have been published in horror and mystery anthologies including The Lizzie Borden House Anthology, A Killing at the Copa: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Barry Manilow, and Behind the Shadows III: Dark Secrets. She is the author of the Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter series. Learn more at cverstraete.com
