It’s currently about eleven degrees in New Jersey, and I am freezing to death. My house is 116 years old and has its original windows. Even with the storm windows (circa 1960s), the freezing air comes through the glass. Our furnace isn’t keeping up and it’s only 60 degrees in here. I’m wearing multiple layers of clothing and fingerless gloves. I can’t wait until summer.

Oddly, instead of eating my head off or hibernating under my covers, which is my normal response to deep winter, I’ve had a sudden surge of creativity in the past few days. This is odd, because I typically don’t feel this way until springtime, but I find myself with the overwhelming urge to browse fabric stores and do some sewing, or to create a collage, or to finally learn how to cook. That last one is the most surprising because normally the thought of cooking makes me break out in hives. I am not in any way a natural cook. I find simple recipes confusing. I have occasionally attempted cooking in the past, but it has always ended in disaster. Once, my then-five-year-old son, who will eat anything, actually threw up right at the dinner table after taking a mouthful of my meatloaf.

But last weekend my girlfriend, Virginia, was visiting and she made a delicious soup for us one evening. It made the house smell amazing and didn’t look too difficult to do. A couple of nights later, I managed to successfully make squash soup using a kit from Whole Foods with very clear instructions (and the help of the afore-mentioned child, who showed me how to use our Cuisinart.)  Now I’ve gone and ordered a cookbook and want to try some more challenging things. Imagine how much money I could save by actually cooking dinner for my family instead of depending on take-out? I could probably even afford a vacation or something! The mind boggles.

The question, of course, is how funneling my creativity into sewing or cooking or art might take away from my writing. It will, there’s no doubt. There are only so many hours in the day, after all. But what I’ve always found is that any creative endeavor ultimately feeds my writing in some way. Although I may not crank out the pages as rapidly as I would if I were only writing, the pages I do complete will be stronger for it. I’ll be less burned out because I won’t be focusing all my creative ju-ju in a single direction.

I’d be curious to know if other writers and artists go through periods of wanting to dive into more than one creative genre and feeling a great drive to…well…create. And what other types of things do you do besides your chosen art form?  Anyone?