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Not everyone can just sit around and work on their opus. These are trying, busy times. But art can act as a stress reliever, and there are lots of small ways to add creativity to your quarantine routine. I asked our writers and editors to share a few.
WRITE A THREE-SENTENCE NOVEL.
In 1906, the critic and activist Felix Fénéon published more than a thousand of what he called “novels in three lines,” all of them appearing in the French newspaper Le Matin.* So this is my prompt (in three sentences). Write a novel in three lines every day.
*And all are collected in a New York Review of Books edition translated by Luc Sante. (As an aside, most people would reflexively cite Ernest Hemingway as the man who won the brevity Olympics, coming up as he did with that famous six-word story about those pesky baby shoes … except that most likely he didn’t.)
— Peter Mendelsund, creative director
BUILD A CRAFT PROJECT, DAY BY DAY.
Completing a small segment of a larger project each day can be a tangible and beautiful way to mark the passage of time in quarantine. Your daily process can be as simple as you like: Take a picture of the view from your window every morning, paint a watercolor swatch in a color that matches your mood, or even fold your gum or candy wrappers to make a chain. Kids can participate too; have your child draw a picture every day of something new she’s noticed.
— Rosa Inocencio Smith, assistant editor