My fingertips grazed the keyboard without effect. Stuck at my short story’s critical point, I needed to escape the laptop shaming my writer’s block. Near my desk, a raft of new drawing supplies sat in a fresh arrangement of cans and canisters on my worktable, which I once used as a puppet sculptor.

I left my writing desk and began a days-long frenzy of drawing–for me the perfect break from a writing dead end. Some of those drawings provided quite a release from my spaghetti of emotions, exacerbated by COVID-19 isolation, and I thought I would share a few here, with comments.

Lately, I crave ice cream and have indulged almost daily in craft brands as well as good old Trader Joe’s pints of deliciousness. The sketches and ‘toons I’ve included today reflect that yen.

My dear, almost daily sketch friend is Gerty, who my husband thinks is my alter ego.  I’d say she’s speaks for my positive feelings and thoughts. The next image presents Gerty and her black cat.

Then, sometimes I imagine life in a usually inanimate object, here an ice cream cone greeting a young woman with, “Well, hello Summer!”

So, now, with happy memories of ice cream well-eaten and feelings externalized in gelato-related drawings, I’ll return to my struggles with that short story [working title “Only Regrets,” which keeps getting longer and may soon become a novella, if I can overcome the writer’s block]