How has the Pandemic affected your Writing?

[Paul Whybrow]

An article in today’s Guardian highlights how some writers have been negatively affected by lockdown:

Writer's blockdown: after a year inside, novelists are struggling to write

My life has barely been altered by the pandemic and quarantine, as I’ve lived a reclusive and solitary life since returning to creative writing in 2013. What has affected my creating new stories in the last year was turning two series of stories into audiobooks, and beginning self-promotion this year. These are deeply boring activities—last night, I devoted three hours to making a spreadsheet listing 500 Promo Codes from ACX, which I intend to start distributing today.

I feel the lack of not writing new stories. Through my own fault, last March, I lost the manuscript of my sixth Cornish Detective novel which caused much anguish, until I realised that the plotline would have been impossible in 2020 with Covid-19 and lockdown. In this way, I agree with what William Sutcliffe says in the article:

“It’s a massive problem for contemporary novelists, most of whose novels are set in a non-specific version of now,” says Sutcliffe. “You can write a novel set in 2013, 14, 15, but 2019, 20, 21, these are three completely different worlds. We can’t have every novel being about the pandemic, but [assessing] the degree to which you acknowledge it is really hard.”

I may be able to recover my manuscript, which is hiding somewhere on an SSD I’ve removed from the laptop, but I won’t be returning to it until life has normalised. This means that should there be any demand for more of my crime series, I’ll be forced into writing prequels.

I have two novellas on hold, which I will return to writing this spring, but they are set in pre-pandemic times so no face masks!

How have you been affected by lockdown?

Have you done more writing, or has your muse been silenced?

 

[Barbara]

How have you been affected by lockdown? Have you done more writing, or has your muse been silenced?

It has affected me quite a bit. Outside stimulation has gone. I've realised how much I rely on the outside world for input and spark and liveliness. Even a simple thing like a squirrel on the side of the road. But with this *INSERT SWEAR WORD OF CHOICE* the walls have closed in, the horizon is just here, and I could do with being physically surrounded by folk who think farther than the garden fence. Not good. Yes, I'm writing more because I have time, but my output isn't as energetic and doesn't flow as much. It's like a part of the brain has been switched off. And writing 'stuckness' has become a BIG deal instead of a small moment of festering.

But hey, it's practice for my retirement. - Or a warning to tell me not to ever stop.

Thank God for Huddles. They keep me going.

 

[KateESal]

To start with, I couldn't concentrate on writing...like many others, I was hooked on the daily doom scrolling, watching with horror as events unfolded around us. We were lucky in that we kept our jobs, but doing school online (both administering it as a teacher, and overseeing its administration to my own children) added a whole extra level of intensity. My brain didn't have much space left over for fiction or other forms of creativity.

When summer came and things eased off, my writing mojo came back again. Since then, it's waxed and waned. But now I'm finding I'm less interested in online stuff and more drawn towards reading and writing again. Which, I think, is healthier.