Assistant Editor Toni Judnitch: Well, it’s been a year. A year! A year of “trying times,” stress dreams about wearing masks, working remotely, and slowly abandoning hobbies we acquired during the initial phases of the pandemic (“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to my dusty ukulele as I dropped it off at a curbside donation center this week). Of course, there have been some positives. This last year has shown the strength of reading and writing communities developing innovative ways to build connections, and our own submissions queues here at CR filled up with high quality poetry and prose at an impressive rate. It seemed, at the beginning of last year, that people were being surprisingly . . . productive.
We’ve talked before about reading during the pandemic , but writing during this real-life Groundhog Day has presented its own challenges. I will admit to being susceptible to the whole “REAL writers write every day, no matter what” dictum as well as other diatribes and propaganda that often circulate on Literary Twitter. One of my dear writer friends is an avid member of “The 5 a.m. Writer’s Club,” and I don’t know how she does it with a new baby and a full-time job. Each morning, I stare at her posts, in awe of her commitment (three hours after the fact), and wonder: how?! This past year, I could often be found staring blankly at my dissertation, a novel project, and sighing dramatically. I simply couldn’t write. I couldn’t read. I could barely focus. The Pandemic Fatigue had set in.
Our team of amazing student editors have offered a ton of recent advice about things like tracking submissions and figuring out when a poem is ready to be sent out, but no matter what advice I read, I just couldn’t get into the groove. My typical prepandemic writing routine often found me in a coffee shop, rewarding myself for reaching word-count goals by caffeinating myself to dangerous levels. This wasn’t possible during mandatory shutdowns. So, over the past couple weeks, I’ve come up with three tips for returning to writing in the wake of a year of disrupted routine.
Tip #1: When you can’t write, read.
I know, I know. I just said that even concentration was an issue, but I discovered a love of audiobooks this past year. Taking walks was one of the few things I could do to alleviate the stress and confusion associated with quarantine. Now, some people might argue that listening to audiobooks doesn’t count as reading, and to that I intelligently say: PSSHAW. I’ve listened to dozens of books this past year, and I’ve loved the way that spending time outdoors could be combined with the joy I experience when I’m reading. Sure, I couldn’t concentrate on the words on a page, but listening to LeVar Burton read contemporary short stories on his podcast was the perfect fix. Storytelling podcasts like The Moth or Welcome to Night Vale are other excellent resources to recharge your writer brain.
If audiobooks or podcasts aren’t for you, having a friend or family member read you their favorite story or even (if they’re feeling brave) make one up on the spot, will simulate the reading experience by expanding communities. And if you can’t concentrate on a full-length novel or story, you might try out something shorter.
Tip #2: When you feel ready to write, set a timer.
Remember the writer friend I mentioned earlier? I only got through writing my MFA thesis (a collection of short stories) because she introduced me to using timed writing sessions. She would set a timer for fifteen minutes as we sat in a coffee shop, and we would write without speaking until the timer beeped. Breaking these sessions down into short bursts was helpful to me, a writer who is easily distracted and totally ready to distract others. Uninterrupted writing for an hour straight? It seemed impossible. But setting it for a half hour, fifteen minutes, or even ten took the pressure off. Writing a few sentences was something. It was enough. I wasn’t thinking about finishing a story or crafting a perfectly compelling scene. I just needed to produce a sentence or two before the beep. And then more. And then more. And eventually, the collection of stories was complete.
Setting your own timer for writing can be an effective way to challenge yourself. Even if you use that time for thinking or researching or just staring at your Word document, you are engaging with your work in a positive and productive way.
Tip #3: Celebrate yourself.
The pandemic has pushed many of us to our limits, and accomplishing the smallest tasks can feel Herculean. It’s easy to get down on yourself, to renounce your writer identity because you haven’t produced anything in days (or weeks or months). I am here to tell you that writing is more than getting words on the page. It’s paying attention to the world, noticing surprising details, telling your friend a story from your past that cracks them up. Comparing ourselves to the success and productivity of others is easy and tempting, of course, but it’s toxic. People who insist that “real” writers write every single day are undercutting the hard work of people with full-time jobs, kids, or disabilities, people that still manage to steal time here and there to write, however briefly. I urge readers to abandon that silly, elitist decree. There’s no such thing as a “real” writer.
And of course: be kind to each other. We’ve spent a whole year locked up in our homes, failing to bake bread and play novelty instruments, and every step of that has been writing. We’ve learned and we’ve grown. We’re writers, even in a pandemic. Celebrate yourself.
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