The reception to the first edition of the Ask an Author feature, launched the fay before Valentine’s Day here on Sahar’s Blog, was much better than I had hoped for. So much so that traffic spiked, and a number of authors signed up to be part of the feature.

This new feature will continue to be published here twice a month on Friday afternoons. An amazing group of authors are going to share their answers to a variety of questions, from serious to silly ones. If you are an author and would like to be added to this list, I would love to hear from you. If you are a reader with a question for our authors, email it to saharsblog (at) gmail (dot) com!

This Feature’s Question, in honor of the seemingly never ending winter up here in Canada: Cabin fever hits hard during winter! What is the craziest thing it made you do?

Sybil Watters

I turned forty years old just as we were on the tail end of a huge snowstorm and we had been inside for days. Naturally, I decided that turning forty required a monumental act of craziness and because I had been inside so long… I went buck naked down the luge track in our backyard! #Nudeluge #snowballs

Lorene Stunson Hill

I remember vividly, during the 70’s painting every room in my house a different color. I painted my kitchen Sunflower, which was more of an Orange than Yellow. I painted my Living Room and Hallway Avocado Green, painted the Crown Moldings, Fireplace Mantel and Baseboards Burgundy. My bedroom ended up Bronze, my son’s bedroom Harvest Gold and the Bathroom Purple. The louder, the better, to keep away the doldrums, subtlety didn’t enter the picture.

Angela Barry

Recently? Not much worse than putting 150 hours into Dragon Age Inquisition. Having a good game helps kill the time while things are frozen outside. In college? Oh, that would be “The Chicken Story”. It’s a rather long story about how a friend and I had been cooped up so long for winter (no pun intended) that the ideal gift we could imagine to get her father for his birthday was a live laying hen. THAT led to interesting times, to be sure!

D. Odell Benson

The craziest thing I’ve done while being hit with cabin fever was to dress up my dog, god daughter, and myself in football jerseys. Although, my god daughter is only 7 months old, she’s the quarter back. We would wait in position for her to throw something, whomever got to it first gains seven points. Needless to say, we ended up ending the game because she fell asleep after three hours of play time. Fun times!

Lee Murray

I’m from sunny New Zealand, and it’s rare we get snowed in down here, although I have lived in London-England, Paris-France and Wisconsin in the United States, all places known for getting a bit of a dumping from time to time. On those occasions, I used to make buttermilk pancakes, shovel the driveway, and settle down on the sofa to attack my teetering to-be-read pile. So, not particularly crazy, but then it was only ever for a day here and there. But imagine if you were cooped up inside for years. My dystopian novelette Cave Fever explores this idea. The story tells of a group of teens, who’ve spent their entire lives stuck in a small underground community of survivors. But certain events lead the teens to suspect that they’ve been lied to, that the world at the Earthface isn’t as scorched and blackened as they’ve been lead to believe…

Hunter Marshall

I get cabin fever, it seems like every year. Being from Idaho, it’s cold and snowy from October to sometimes, April. The craziest thing cabin fever has ever made me do is read a 700 page book from start to finish in less than 2 days. It’s a good thing I love to read!

Karo Oforofuo

Well, in my part of the world, we do not experience winter. All the same, I can totally relate to what you have asked. There have been times that I was indoors for a long time. I was so bored. I would have loved to write some more, so as to kill boredom but, I hit writer’s block. Since there was nothing to put down, I decided to play around. You see, one of my goals in life is to see my books adapted to screen and also, I would love to play the role of certain characters in my book. Being bored with nothing to do, I decided to try out my acting skills.

So, I sat with my needle and thread, sewed some costumes and tried them on to make sure they fit. It was not a perfect costume but it was just okay for the moment. After I was sure that everything was fine with the costumes, I stood in front of my floor length mirror and acted out some crazy characters in some of my novellas. My experience that day really made me respect our actors and actresses. They are truly good at what they do. Aside from that, I had a good laugh.

To cut long story short, I took my acting to a different level, after assuming that I was suddenly doing well with one of my favourite characters. I got my phone and set it on video record. After the recording, I edited the video. I tried to make it better. When I finished editing, I watched the video and smiled. I smiled because I knew I was definitely not going to put the video online. To date, I haven’t put it. I think I am still waiting for the day I would have the courage to show everyone what my acting looks like.

Image credit: Chad Mauger.