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Hey,
I read an article last week from Alison Flood in the Guardian, called Writer’s Blockdown – which detailed the struggle many authors are experiencing right now when it comes to the most important part of our jobs: putting down new words.
And that’s what I want to talk about this week. Especially the struggle part.
If the topic of lockdowns and writers block or pandemics isn’t what you need today, I get you. You can check out the Author Revolution podcast I did on marketing instead. But I do promise to end here on a happy note!
Real talk first though: most of us have been doing some combination of self-isolating or restricting movements (or recuperating from a potentially deadly illness) for twelve months now. It’s natural that it would have a profound affect on our minds as well as our bodies… and in many cases our productivity too.
While it might look like I’ve been quite productive over the last twelve months, I have been struggling in many ways. I’m not whining– I am particularly grateful for the privileged position I find myself in.
I am safe, happy, and healthy, and that’s not something I could have said a year ago, when I was seriously ill with (probable) coronavirus.
I say "probable," because this was right at the start of the outbreak when it was impossible to get tested – and the prospect of doing so was quite scary. And directly after I travelled down to Lisbon to pick up my partner at the airport, who was flying back here to Portugal after visiting her family, and right after I mixed with hundreds of people from all over at Carnaval, which was one giant, big seething petri dish, of course. I certainly seemed to have all the symptoms, was terribly sick for around five weeks, and had a few very disturbing days when oxygen levels dropped and I just couldn’t get air into my lungs – not something I ever want to experience again.
So… while I did make a full recovery, eventually, and haven’t experienced any lingering health issues once I did recover, it has made me very cautious. I have pretty much been self-isolating for twelve months now, along with my partner. The outbreak happened just five months after we moved here from Ireland, and I was just planning a visit back home to Dublin when everything was shut down – so it’s around 18 months since I have seen anyone I really know.
Which sucks.
But I do have perspective – sickness will do that, I guess. I’m super glad to be healthy, and safe, and happy, and financially secure too. And I’m fully aware that millions and millions of people are in far worse positions, and don’t have the luxury of making money online, and from the safety and comfort of their homes.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t struggle with all this sometimes.
I’m pretty good at self-care. In fact, my collection of superior hams would seem to indicate I’m perhaps a little too good at it. I’m also quite handy at blocking things out, filling my days, keeping busy, not dwelling on the bad, seeing the good in anything, making the most of any situation, and so on and so forth.
And yet.
I was joking on Twitter recently that I have this constant worry that I’ve left something switched on in the kitchen, and I can’t decide whether that’s some kind of low-level manifestation of bottled-up pandemic anxiety… or based on the fact that I’ve set the kitchen on fire three times recently.
That part isn’t a joke! I did it twice more since making that gag on social media. Which will show me...
More serious, is that I’ve been unable to read a novel for around a year. I just can’t focus on it. I can gobble up non-fiction, dry marketing posts, technical guides to SEO – it’s really bizarre. But give me a good novel and I’ll struggle. This is… new.
And I don’t like it.
Definitely more concerning again is the effect this has had on my fiction writing. I’m sure these two things are linked, but I’ve really been finding it difficult to make any progress on a number of overdue fiction projects. The words are less of a flowing river and more of a dripping faucet. They are coming… but… in… the… most… annoying… manner… possible.
Again, I’m very fortunate that I have various non-fiction projects that I can work on and make money from instead. Others writers aren’t so lucky. And writers have it better than most too: plenty of friends are teachers or pilots or work in construction or hospitality.
But it still sucks, and I still struggle with it.
If that doesn’t describe you, great! Some authors I know have responded to this slow-motion apocalypse by ramping up production levels to incredible amounts. Those are the stories we tend to hear about, to amplify, to parse for clues as to what is wrong with us – why we can’t be like the others.
So, I want to tell you that it’s okay to be struggling. It’s okay if you can’t write, or don’t feel like learning email marketing, or have absolutely no desire to wrestle with Facebook Ads or fix the thorny problem of everyone finding your love interest to be whiny and annoying.
It’s okay, and you are not alone.
Everyone is facing different challenges right now, whether that is dealing with kids being home all the time, taking care of others and shielding the vulnerable, or the simple act of putting bread on the table – both in a literal and metaphorical sense, in a world when just getting to the supermarket and back in a safe manner isn’t so straightforward anymore.
And while I’m delighted at everyone who is getting vaccinated nice and early, and posting their happiness on social media, some of us might be waiting quite some time before we can end our self-isolation and return to some semblance of normality.
We need to look after ourselves, and each other – and we might need to do it for a while yet.
Just know that most people are struggling on one level as well, however productive they might appear. Everyone is finding this tough in one way or another. And I know some of you have lost people as well.
It’s okay if all you feel like doing is crashing on the couch and binging Netflix. Readers aren’t going anywhere. You will get your mojo back eventually. And we will get through this.
I did promise to end on a positive note, so here’s two of the blighters.
First, I was chatting with a friend on Zoom last week and told him about my… novel predicament, and he immediately and forcefully recommended Theory of Bastards by Audrey Schulman, saying it was just the thing to get me out of my reading rut.
And, by Jove, he was right. I don’t want to say too much about it because I had the most wonderful experience going into it completely blind, but if you like cerebral SF then just one-click it now and thank me later.
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