In this time of coronavirus-driven isolation and fear, many of us are lucky if we change out of the sweatpants we fell asleep in. We cope as best we can, pretending like everything is normal as we huddle inside, grocery shop in masks, and try to juggle working at home with child-rearing, taking care of a house/apartment, cooking dinner and, you know, occasionally taking care of ourselves.
And yet, people are shouting across the internet about all the free time people have to improve themselves. “Now is the time!” they say. “Do something creative with your spare time!”
Learn a new language.
Write your novel.
Take up painting.
Learn how to cook French cuisine.
Take apart a motorcycle and put it back together.
While that might be great for some (if you’re one of the people who is humming along perfectly fine and needs a hobby, kudos to you! Seriously. A lot of people are envious of your free time + fortitude), but it’s a near impossibility for others.
When I think of my friends and their current situations, they often fall into one of three categories:
They are furloughed and freaking out about it.
They are now working from home AND providing full-time child care to their child(ren).
They are working from home and feeling any combination of isolated, agitated, scared, depressed, and in desperate need of a hug.
It’s a tad difficult to learn Turkish if you fall into any of those three categories.
How on earth are people supposed to feel creative and motivated, when their daily spark is snuffed out each day when they view the COVID death toll or hear yet another piece of doom and gloom news or are forced to walk into a grocery store where everyone shuffles around silently, and avoids eye contact?
Might I suggest writing?
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Writing is creative. How am I supposed to write during a time like this??
Try writing for yourself. JUST yourself. Put creativity on the backburner (it will likely sneak to the forefront anyway), and write. Free write. Journal. Use prompts to propel your writing. Try these five tips:
1. Write by hand, in a private notebook
Writing by hand allows your thoughts to flow in a way that is hard to achieve on a keyboard. Designate a private, COVID-time notebook, and use it however you’d like.
2. Do NOT edit your writing
This is about free writing. This is about releasing your pent-up thoughts and emotions onto the page. It isn’t about penning the next Grapes of Wrath or 100 Years of Solitude (two books that are a little too relevant right now). It’s about letting your writing flow, uninhibited.
3. Write whenever you feel like it
Don’t force this. If you don’t write every day, that’s okay. The moment this feels like a chore, is the moment you’ll stop doing it.
On the other hand, if you love routine, you might consider writing every morning when you wake up or every evening, before you go to sleep.
4. Be kind to yourself
Your writing doesn’t have to be brilliant right now. It doesn’t even have to be good. Use it as an instrument to heal and sustain you.
Just like some of the ugliest foods are the most nourishing (hello, curry and lentil soup!), so too can your unpolished, raw writing be precisely what you need right now.
5. Write about COVID…or don’t
If you want to write angry rants about COVID or compose tragic sonnets about isolation, that’s great. If you want to write fairytales about trolls and centaurs and half-human/half-birds that live in tree houses, that’s great too. Write whatever you need to write. Write whatever comes out.
One day, you might feel like writing snappy, uplifting haikus. Another day, you might fall into a free-writing tornado in which you criticize the government, rag on your in-need-of-a-trim hair, and bemoan your nonexistent cooking skills.
It doesn’t matter what you write. The simple act of putting pen(cil) to paper is enough.
If you’re in need of a release, but can’t quite muster the creative juices and energy to take up canoe-making or basket-weaving, try writing. Write without judgement. Write for your mental and emotional health. Write to release the emotions flittering around your chest.
Write for yourself.
