Dear O'Abby: Help! I've lost my creativity!

Dear O’Abby,

This year seems to be taking a toll on my creativity.  I’ve always managed to juggle a full-time job, kids and enough of a social life to keep connected with my friends and family and writing a minimum of two books a year.  This year all that has gone out the window, and I don’t quite understand how.  I actually have more hours in the day to work with because I’ve been working from home and don’t have to negotiate the hour or so commute each day, plus all my kids’ after-school activities have been on hold, so I don’t have to rush from ballet to soccer practice to karate.

Yet I still can’t seem to find time to write, and it’s beginning to really stress me out.

Do you have any tips for me?

Yours,

Slumped

Dear Slumped,

I don’t think you are alone in feeling this way. In fact, I feel like I may have covered this topic already this year, but no matter. It's important enough we can cover it again. 

COVID-19 has disrupted our lives in a massive way, and the constant uncertainty over the situation is affecting people in numerous different ways.  Even if you are lucky enough to be able to work from home and are not feeling the economic pinch of having lost a job, there is still a level of anxiety about just living in this current world.

And while working at home is saving you commuting time, it’s not giving you the separation between your workplace and your home life that you are probably used to.  Where I live, we were only in lockdown for a couple of months, but I really struggled to write during this period because all of a sudden, my creative space also became my workplace.  And after spending all day working in that space, the last thing I wanted to do after that was to go back there to write in the evening.

If you can, separate the place you do your day job from the place you do your creative writing.  Maybe you usually write in your office, but this office has now been taken over by your day job.  When you want to do creative writing, move your laptop out of the office and work somewhere else in the house.  Or if you don’t have a laptop, maybe try writing longhand in a notebook instead.  The physical act of handwriting is often a great creative exercise.

Another option is to try writing at a different time of day.  In my day job, I do a lot of writing and often find that by the end of the day, I’m out of words and struggle to get anything down when I sit down and open up my manuscript.  To counter that, I started getting up an hour or so earlier in the morning and using that time to write, before the rest of the day took over and sapped my creative energy.  It took a little time to get used to because I’ve always been a night owl and wrote into the night, but I’ve discovered I actually write better in the mornings.

Another thing you could try is taking short breaks throughout the day to write.  Set a timer and take a 20-minute break from whatever else you are doing and just write.  Don’t edit or read over what you have written, just write until the timer stops.  Do this three or four times during the day, and you may find you’ve done as much, if not more, than you would have if you’d given yourself 90 consecutive minutes at the end of the day.

But if none of these things work for you, don’t stress out.  Maybe your body is telling you to take a break.  Even if you’re not feeling particularly anxious or stressed about everything going on, it will be affecting you.  Perhaps this lack of creative energy is how it is manifesting in you.  If you can’t write, don’t try and force it.  Use that time to exercise, get outside in your garden, soak in a bubble bath, or read a book.  When you’re ready to write again, you’ll write.  The story you want to tell will still be there, and it may even be better and easier to get onto the page because you’ve given yourself time to relax and breathe.  And maybe think through things in the story you may not have considered had you not given yourself that time.

Remember, you can still be a writer even if you are not actively sitting down and pounding the keyboard each day.  A lot of writing happens in our heads, and it’s not going be any good if our heads are fogged with stress and anxiety.

Hope this is helpful!

X O’Abby

Dear O'Abby: How Soon is Too Soon?

Dear O'Abby,

Just wondering if you think it's too soon to think about writing a novel set during a global pandemic?  

Cheers,

Corona Pirate

Dear Corona Pirate,

Firstly, love your nom-de-plume!  Very apt.

Personally, I feel like it's probably too early to write a book set during this global pandemic.  We're still in the midst of it and how things will play out is yet to be seen.  Given the length of time it takes to write an publish a book, if you write something now, you risk ending up with something that will be dated or wildly inaccurate six months to a year from now.  Better to wait and see how things play out before you dive in and try to make sense of the experience.

That said, there is nothing to stop you from writing about a different pandemic.  Maybe an historical piece set during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, or even the years in which the Bubonic Plague swept through Europe.  Alternatively, you could look at writing something set in the future or in a fantasy world where a pandemic is ravaging this, or some other planet.

There are also scenarios where I can see that writing something contemporary, set during this particular time could work as long as the pandemic is more of a background event or the springboard for the story.  Maybe an enemies to lovers type thing where two characters are forced to lockdown together.  I heard from a friend recently about a divorced couple who had to quarantine together in a hotel after returning from visiting their son overseas.  Fertile ground for a romance (or a murder) perhaps?

I think as long as the pandemic and the science around it remain firmly in the background, and you don't try to offer any solution or possible end to what is happening globally right now, you could try and write something. 

The question is whether you want to explore something so devastating while we are still living through it.  I feel that something like this needs time and perspective before we can start writing about it. The full impact of this pandemic is yet to come and it is likely the fallout from it will affect us for many years.

You don't need to rush.  There will be plenty of time to write about 2020 once we're through this and can see how the world has changed as a result of this period.

X O'Abby

Writing Now That Things Are Different

For a lot of us, things have gotten really intense really fast. Shelter in place orders have a lot of us now spending way more time at home than usual. (For those of you now spending all day with small children, I bid you strength.) However, to me, it was a dream came true when my state issued "shelter in place" because it meant that I would have so much more time for writing! At last, nobody can invite me to some event that my Midwest Nice upbringing won't let me refuse - I'm quickly learning that I'm more of an introvert than I thought I was, haha.

Just as quickly, though, I'm realizing that simply being home does not equal more writing. Don't get me wrong, I've been productive, but I've been doing things like hanging photos on the walls or deep-cleaning the spare room or learning to make macarons. Exactly zero writing has happened so far. And it makes me feel so guilty that I can't sleep at night. Here I have this golden opportunity to knock out an entire round of revisions in a weekend, and what am I doing? Staring into a pot of sugar water to make sure it doesn't crystallize.

Being at home all day felt like it should be perfect: I could wear sweatpants, snack all day, and spend hours with my cat. Once work hours are over, though, I'm stuck with two things: a desire to write, and a burning need to not sit at my computer anymore. And somehow, writing keeps getting pushed back, usurped by some household chore that just needs to happen right now for some unfathomable reason. Every night, I curl in on myself, hating that I didn't even think about revisions.

But the thing is, we shouldn't beat ourselves up for not being our most productive during a literal pandemic. Things are different now, and they will be for the foreseeable future. An adjustment period is expected - natural, even. A lot of us have more pressing things to deal with, like trying to arrange child care while also working from home, or suddenly being without a job, or dealing with the fact that a close relation is sick. It is okay to not write a single word during these trying times. It is okay to write an entire novel because you can't go to work and you're self-isolating. If you can, reach out to your writing friends and check in on them. But remember, don't take on more than you can handle. Nobody is keeping score.

The only things you really need to do are stay home, stay safe, and wash your hands.