Did the pandemic freeze your writing? (plus how to get writing again)

I want to talk about writing today.

Or technically, about not writing.

Specifically I’m talking to you novelists, screenplay writers, poets, and short story writers out there.

Hi babes.

I’ve heard from a number of people that at a certain point in the pandemic, their writing just STOPPED.

Maybe it was the forced quarantine.

Maybe it was the result of long Covid and the exhausting symptoms of the virus.

Maybe it was an amalgam of stressors that caused an internal record scratch on the flow of writing.

Or maybe everything was hard enough and that made writing feel extra hard.

Or maybe it was a little bit of everything for you.

Today the world is mostly (... ish?) back to normal (... ish?), but I’m hearing from you that your will to write most certainly is NOT back.

In fact, it feels like that part of you that could write freely is frozen in time somewhere back in pre-pandemic land.

And it feels like TOO MUCH to sit down with the writing you started before or—even harder—to sit down with a fresh page and start something new.

And you don’t know why.

And love, that’s OK.

If you’re open to it, can I offer a possible reason why you’re having trouble writing right now?

When we go through a tough time, a heartbreak, an ending, a death, a traumatic phase, a global pandemic with a subsequent fallout on multiple levels of society—that very struggle we’re enduring can rattle so many other past or untapped struggles within us that we can get overwhelmed, stuck, frozen.

As artists, as writers, we FEEL big feelings.

We SEE the pain in technicolor.

We EXPERIENCE the grief.

We are sensitive and sensory and susceptible to not just our own deep feelings, but the feelings of so many beings around us.

By adulthood, many writers have figured out how to cope with all of this intense energy coming at them.

There are activities we use to buffer, numb, and drown out the significant intensity of ALL THAT WE FEEL.

And it works, in the interim…

But here’s the catch when we do that—when we buffer, numb, and drown out our feelings, we buffer, numb, and drown out our greatest gift:

The incredible sensitivity and receptivity that we use to create our work.

It’s a tall order to write—writing is a vulnerable and exquisitely intimate process.

To take that tall order of writing and then to ask of ourselves...

• write when you are hurting...

• write when you are scared...

• write when you are depleted...

• write when you are traumatized…

• write when you have nothing left to give...

That can feel like an impossibility to your artist’s soul.

It can feel especially difficult if writing feels like opening a pandora's box of pain that’s sitting right under the surface from everything you’ve been through.

No wonder it’s so hard to write, love.

So what do you do to get writing again?

I suggest you start with gentleness and a quiet acknowledgement of what’s going on.

After that, you may need healing.

I personally believe that healing must come before writing.

(Not everyone heals through writing although that may be you too.)

Just like an injured runner must nurse her knee back to health before she runs again, a writer who’s been through hell must nurse her heart and mind back to being able to feel, being able to imagine, or being able to sit in wonder before she writes again.

If the pandemic froze your writing dear one, you’re not alone.

After an initial few months of global artistic camaraderie, many artists, many writers grew quiet.

It’s OK to be where you are right now.

It’s OK to put your own healing ahead of your work.

I encourage you to be easy with yourself this week.

If this post rang true for you, I’d love to hear from you.

Gentle hugs,

Rebecca*

PS: Know a writer who’s struggling to write again? I’d love for you to share this post with them. Thank you, thank you, thank you. <3