The past year of the pandemic has felt like a time of stasis in so many ways. We’re physically isolated and we’re spending more time than ever indoors. Entire categories of friendship have melted away. Most of us are hunkering down and just waiting for this madness to pass, and yet the very act of waiting for some indeterminate date just makes the end feel farther away.
This has translated into some mental stasis for me too. It’s coincided with a period where my most recent novel has been on hold for a time, and I’ve found it difficult to push anything forward apart from my business.
Physically, creatively, even psychically: things have felt stuck.
Of course… all of this might not pass. Who knows if and when things will return to what they were before? And it’s hard to feel like you’re sitting around just letting time just melt away.
I feel a bit caught between trying to force myself to push through to aim for a sense of momentum vs. just accepting that things are going to move more slowly with the stressors of this time.
So I thought I’d see what you think and how you’ve been approaching this.
Are you pushing forward? Or are you accepting the stasis? How are you keeping your head up? Where are you with your creative work?
To the comments!
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Art: Inokashira Pond and Benzaiten Shrine in Snow by Hiroshige
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The part of my project-brain that has stalled out during quarantine is the promotional part. For better or worse, I’ve just set aside event planning and networking, even what can be done online. I feel isolated so it’s a good time to go deep into the messiness of a new project, a new style (verse novels), and am playing with flash forms because that feels like the right attention span thee days. I also cleaned and rearranged my office, which gave me new motivation and focus in my creative work.
Some things that have helped me:
– Sitting for 15 minutes a day and doing nothing, just observing my breathing. My therapist suggested it. It’s so hard – I always want to be DOING something – but sitting with some discomfort helps me calm down in general.
– I got an Oculus VR for Christmas and it’s so much fun. I just use it for exercise, but when I’m using it, it’s refreshing to be someplace different, even virtually.
– This was more important before Biden became president, but I put a time limit on Facebook and Twitter.
– I turn off the Internet when I write (via Freedom app) and often I will tell myself that I am just watching the words appear. Anything to break away from my inner critic.
I love this plan of sitting for 15 minutes a day and doing nothing. And I’m also currently talking myself out of buying an Oculus VR because that DOES sound fun!
Nathan, I’m pushing forward. Working on the last editing/rewriting stages of a first book that was professionally edited. I have the time & energy to persist, no matter what’s going on in the world. It’s a matter of adjusting & adapting in order to survive and keep the passion to write alive. Exercise & playing the guitar help. Minimal TV and I read health & safety news on my iPhone. Fellow blog posts connect me with virtual friends. It’s all about finding balance in life. 📚🎶 Christine
A positive feedback doc has been very helpful for me. Any time a critique buddy leaves a positive comment about something I’ve written, or a student or parent writes me a nice note, I copy and paste it into my special doc. When I start to hate my novel or when pandemic teaching feels too overwhelming, I open up my positive feedback doc. My school email is so overfull of blithe positivity memes I could barf, but my doc has real positivity that I’ve earned. It helps keep me from shutting down.
Being a teacher requires a special kind of patience. I have done craft time with elementary students quite a few times. The kids for the most part seemed to enjoy it (there’s always someone who has no interest in crafts), but I always went home feeling overwhelmed and exhausted – from craft time! Teaching is a lot of work and dedication under normal circumstances. People think that teachers have it easier now, but they do not.
It is actually much harder for teachers now. I have trouble enough making sure my own kids are staying in their Zoom meetings. I have to peak a look at their screens and make sure they aren’t on You Tube or playing a video game when they think I’m not paying attention. Teachers now have to deal with a whole class of kids who may or may not also be doing other things. They have more e-mails now, and it is harder to make connections with students on a screen. My kids complain about that. I know the teachers are feeling it too, because they regularly send emails asking parents to ask our kids to keep the cameras on.
I have no idea how you do it. If teaching under normal circumstances requires a special kind of patience, quarantine teaching requires an even greater level of patience. Thank you for being a teacher during these trying times. I hope things will get easier soon.
P.S. If there’s a particular thing that you’re hating about your novel, that may be something you need to work on within the novel.
Moving forward, Nathan, but only slowly. Even over here in Australia, which has had it easy, I think there’s a sense of needing to be kind to oneself and not push too hard.
Work, of course, is – as ever – the rope to hold onto through the bog.
I’ll start with this: there’s definitely a renewed sense of hope in me after Jan. 20th. There’s a lot to still be overwhelmed and frustrated by, but many of us are able to let go of long held rage and fear and that’s so nice. It helps. A lighter load for travels, if you will.
Luckily I’ve able to continue with my work–just turning it into telehealth (which did require some adapting, but it’s nice to have my own bathroom to use), but sometimes it’s easy to feel stuck and unmotivated. I think it would help if I could be out and about having lunches and wearing nicer pants. I’ve worked more on my writing than I ever have before. One could argue that it hasn’t paid off –my agent broke up with me after I submitted a draft for feedback– but I’m working VERY HARD to see this as a reason to double down, improve the craft, seek out a better fit for representation (my writing buddy/critique partner keeps telling me this is the best thing that could have happened). I think that counts as moving forward?
Other things: getting our house ready to sell. My kid deciding on a college to attend next year and planning for that (huge!). So, I have no choice. Rooms need painted! The porch roof is leaking! Virtual tours need to be taken.
I’m so desperate for a trip, though. New places!
This comment is sounding very privileged, so let me just take a moment to acknowledge that.
Nathan, I’m so curious about this novel of yours. Where is it? What is happening? Are you able to share? We need more Nathan books in the world!
Okay, well, that was a novella and I’m not even sure I answered the question.
The job I was used to ceased to exist, and as a result, I found the time to do what I always wanted: write a book. It turns out trying to write, publish, and market is a full-time job all in itself!
Over the summer I was productive, but this fall and winter I’ve hit a spot where I can’t concentrate. Everything I try to write is awful. And it just makes me stress more, which in turn makes me less creative. So when it came time to think about 2021 resolutions, instead of creating a writing plan, I decided to spend this year reading. And then, this week, I’ve had two really good story ideas that I’m excited about. I’m going to work on them, at least outline them or create a rough draft, but I’m not pressuring myself to write a certain amount. I’m not quitting forever. And I’m not sure I consider it quitting, since reading is writerly education. 2 cliches to think about that are very true. There’s a time for everything – clearing the slate, filling the plate. And – a watched pot doesn’t boil.
I tend to make a lot of commitments. They are for worthy causes, but they are still commitments. I always imagined that if I could just not have any commitments for like a month or two, there would be all these things I would be able get done. I imagined I would be so productive. Even with almost a year of no commitments, it has turned out to be more like the “Twilight Zone” episode “Time Enough at Last” than my dream scenario.
While I have no outside commitments, I have a bunch of commitments at home. I am a full time mom and wife, literally full time. My husband works at home. My kids go to school virtually. I love them and enjoy the extra time together, but being together all the time makes it difficult to carve out a block of uninterrupted time to write or do a lot of things. Even when the kids are at virtual school, there’s a lot of little interruptions. If an idea hits me, not even the interruptions would keep me from writing. Until that happens, not writing is okay. It’s okay to give yourself permission not to write.
This is the perfect time to reevaluate. And I decided to use quarantine to organize my whole house, If I’m going to be stuck here indefinitely, the space should work better.
For us, there is no end in sight. I have a daughter with a lung disease, but she is not old enough to get the vaccine (our state would allow it if she was). Her doctors say that people who get the vaccine are protected from getting sick, but that they can still pass on the virus to others. Until she is able to get the vaccine herself, she is still at risk.
I am grateful because my daughter is healthy and well. I know that being able to stay home to keep her safe is a blessing. I take things one day at a time. And today is day number 327. It’s also groundhog day, and waking up in quarantine everyday can feel an awful lot like “Groundhog Day”. If you don’t like how today went, tomorrow is another opportunity to get things right.
Internally screaming at the muses to just show up. Having real weird dreams every night. Staring at the screen and scrambling scenes until it works. Tension. Get some of this tension out of my head and into the world of my novel. Crazy people write good books. So going crazy is okay.
Yes, the dreams. I know all about the dreams. They are so crazy that I know they are dreams while I am having them. It is fun trying to control and change them, but sleep would be good too.
If sitting in front of the screen gets to be too much, or if you need a change of pace, go old school and write by hand for a while. I prefer to write by hand, so when I need a change of pace, I stare at the screen (I wish I had a typewriter). For me there’s something about physically writing that makes me feel more connected to my work.
I have had to push myself to be creative at work these past 10 months in order to move a paper-based organization into the digital age. When I’ve been super stressed, it has been hard to let the creativity flow; but when I relaxed and kept telling myself “It will all get done” and “Do one thing at a time”, my brain opened up a bit more. Ideas flowed for work, and eventually spilled out in the form of crocheted items. Last week, I even wrote a short story in one sitting. Haven’t looked at my novel for a year, but “it will all get done”. 🙂
Nathan, I really liked your article on goal setting earlier this year. The idea of achieving goals related different aspects of life- body, mind, heart, spirit, etc. really spoke to me. I think what is most helpful to help us achieve the goals we set is to establish good habits that can support us when we are going through unusual times like the one’s we’re in right now.