The COVID-19 diaries: torpor
11/04/2020
Is anyone else baking like it’s going out of fashion? I’m not at all gluten intolerant but gluten does do weird things to my blood sugars… and yet I continue to turn to the occupational therapy of making another loaf, another cake, another batch of muffins. We have run out of plain flour but I still have rye flour, rice flour, semolina, wholemeal, self-raising and high grade…
In exciting news, my sister has launched her movie! The one that I mentioned in this comic, a live performance derailed by the lockdown and turned into a video performance. You can watch it here or else you can join her facebook launch here where you will be able to quiz the director and have an excuse to drink a glass of wine.
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LET ME BE FRANK 
When at last we are released and MANIC sets in – I bet we look back on this stage with Lockdown nostalgia – when at least we knew where “they” were.
Haha yes!
Yes I always have good resolve, but by the time my morning dog walk is completed I have sunk into my habitual computer watching for new doomsday stories. Babies and children dying, pretty young nurses dying and handsome doctors. Robyn
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Dear Sarah Your comics are making ALL the difference to my life. The low key humour, and the general lack of upbeat opportunity/ jolly/ jolly really makes me happy. I feel understood as a mother and creator. I also feel empathy for your position with diabetes to manage in this situation. It’s hard parenting sleepy teenagers through this. Most of our family arguments are about productivity and judging each other’s.
Totally get what you mean about all that gluten playing havoc with blood sugar.
I just had to write because I see that you are Melissa’s sister! Wow! I never made that connection. What epic parents you must have.
All the best and keep up the drawing – at the pace that works Sophie >
Thanks, Sophie! Glad you’re enjoying them. Nice to hear from you!
Hi Sarah,
Thank you for your daily updates on lockdown in NZ and greetings from UK lockdown!
I started following your blog a couple of years ago as I’m a fellow type 1 diabetic. A very much failed one these days, especially so after having my son six years ago.
Just wanted to say it’s refreshing and impressive to see how you are juggling your diabetes, two kids and your comics! Much of my life seems to be governed by not being able to reign my diabetes and my almost six year old for that matter, so not achieving much is really not achieving much, whereas you are producing a daily comic and doing lots of baking by the looks of things. With re: to baking, I recommend almond flour (low carb) baking, as long as you have no but allergies, of course.
On a completely unrelated tangent, can I please ask for some writing advice, if you don’t mind / feel free to ignore my email if you are too busy. I can see that in addition to illustrating, you are also a successful short stories’ writer. I’m looking for some guidance / advice as to what to do with a small collection of short stories centred around type 1 diabetes. I had them professionally edited and paid for a template cover in preparation for self-publishing. However, I then chickened out and didn’t self-publish the stories. I also wrote a longer story about a diabetes-studying time-travelling historian (yes, I know, how much more cliche can you get – time travel, duh!) but it just felt right at the time when I felt doomed and forever uncured.
This was nearly three years ago and in the current bizarre situation, I thought why not have another go. Why did I write all that stuff in the first place? I suppose not all written work is meant to be but I wanted to give mine a proper chance. I just wondered if you had any advice or suggestions for me. Don’t worry if you have better things to be doing and all the best with all your work!
Take care, Sasha
Hi Sophie, thanks for getting in touch! You are not a failed diabetic! It’s hard, at the best of times.
Re the writing, I guess you could still go down the self-publishing route – I think it’s quite easy to publish on Amazon – or else you could try and approach publishers or send your individual stories off to journals? My UK publisher has written a book on how to get published – it might be worth a read: http://eye-books.com/books/tips-from-a-publisher