BLUME WHERE YOU’RE PLANTED
A handful of authors share how they’re spending their self-isolation
Working remotely? Welcome to the world of a writer. You’re at home. You’ve got to focus. But there are a million distractions. So how are some favourite writers faring?
JUDY BLUME (BLUBBER, FOREVER)
Blume, 82, is quarantined with her husband in Key West, Fla.
The first week of isolation, “I was absolutely paralyzed by anxiety,” she said. “I couldn’t do anything. I was so sad. We’ve lived long lives, George and I, but this isn’t right. This isn’t how it’s supposed to end.”
She is doing a lot of reading (Laura Zigman’s Separation Anxiety and Lily King ’s Writers & Lovers). Meanwhile, she has sold the film rights to some of her books, including Wifey and — brace yourself — Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
“I know. I didn’t let it go for 50 years. I said never. Margaret was off the table,” she said. But she changed her mind when The Edge of Seventeen director Kelly Fremon Craig expressed interest.
“The book is there,” she reasoned. “It will always be there.”
SAMANTHA IRBY
(WE ARE NEVER MEETING IN REAL LIFE, MEATY)
Irby’s new book of essays, Wow, No Thank You, will make you glad to be inside.
She’s spending her time at home in Kalamazoo, Mich., where she lives with her wife and watches Judge Mathis for her newsletter.
“I have zero writing schedule,” she said. “I wish I could be a person who adheres to the rules I set for myself. It needs to feel dire ...
I need to know that all of Random House will shut down by June 15 if I do not have that in.”
Because her book tour was cancelled, Irby is trying to figure out what to do next, but it probably won’t involve virtual author events — the comments, she says, are deadly.
“Here’s the thing, no one was prepared for this pandemic. No one knows really how to use this technology,” she said. “It’s just so horrible watching everyone trying to figure all this stuff out from our homes. Nothing looks worse than a million people on a Zoom call.”
JENNIFER WEINER
(GOOD IN BED, IN HER SHOES)
Weiner is making challah and doing the laundry at her home in Philadelphia, where she lives with her writer husband and daughters, ages 12 and 16. Her book Big Summer was supposed to come out May 19, a light, fizzy beach read.
She thought about pushing back the launch, but readers said they needed something to escape into. So her publisher moved the release date to May 5.
Bookstores have closed and Amazon isn’t prioritizing book shipments. Many readers have lost their jobs. So Weiner said she’s mailing out as many free copies as she can, and trying to connect with readers — mostly online.
KEAH BROWN
(THE PRETTY ONE)
Brown likes a plan. Now she schedules in time to panic.
The creator of the hashtag #DisabledAndCute lives near Niagara Falls, N.Y., with her mother and sister, and breaks up the day into parts: She works on the stuff she gets paid for in the morning. After lunch, she’ll spend time working on her book.
Brown has cerebral palsy and worries about news reports that people with disabilities will be the ones chosen to be “made comfortable” during the pandemic instead of getting the ventilators they need to survive. “I’m very anxious about it all the time, but it’s also not productive, so I schedule time to be anxious
... I say to myself, ‘You can feel this way, but only for this amount of time.’”
WALLY LAMB
(SHE’S COME UNDONE, I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE)
A few years ago, Lamb’s wife got him a Fitbit for Christmas.
“I definitely kept it on the dresser for at least a year ... But now I’ve put it on. My plan was to do 10,000 steps a day ... I was so good the first week of confinement, but now it’s been 14 days and it’s like snack time every 15 minutes.”
Lamb said he usually keeps to a tight schedule.
“My creative brain is most active in the early morning, coming out of the dream state,” he said. “I’ve done my fair share of goofing off, but I’ve been a little more productive than usual.”
He’s working on a new novel about a character who is just coming out of prison, and he finds the writing provides a welcome respite from our current reality.
“Writing allows me to escape the whole pandemic for the hours that I’m writing,” he said. “In the story that I’m writing, coronavirus isn’t there, we are still free of it in that world, and I get my head pretty deeply into it because I’m writing in first person. I am this guy while I’m there.”
The Washington Post