COVID-19 Reaction
The world has turned into a horrible stressful place because of COVID-19. But we writers have a creative outlet to help us cope. I’m not referring to writing about COVID-19 or how we are dealing with all the crap and changes associated with it. Yes, my last two posts have done just that.
But I have found another way that as a writer I can use to cope much better.
Just write.
In a previous post I referred to writing both a memoir and the next novel in my Beyond mystery series in the same timeline, i.e., one day rewrite some of my memoir, the next day, write some of my Beyond mystery novel. That did help, but it was too scatty, too fragmented.
So, I had to choose to write one at a time.
My publisher had given me a deadline for later this month to get the rewrite of my memoir to him. The mystery novel is not due until at least sometime next year (depending on COVID-19 interference with when book launches and the like can be held). So, I put the novel on hold, even though my interfering main character, PI Dana Bowman, is giving me hell and some choice words about that. I’ve restarted my Crime Beat Confidential TV shows, which Dana appears on (see here to watch a previous show), so that should shut her up, except in the TV shows).
PI Dana Bowman on Crime Beat Confidential
I also put one other thing on hold until the memoir rewrite is finished and the TV show is taped – finish editing that long novel that requires a heavy edit for a client. Client isn’t too happy, but is accepting it, as I have come up with a way to shorten my time getting his editing work done in future.
One thing COVID-19 is teaching me is “one thing at a time and if others don’t like it, they can lump it.”
And as I began focusing on rewriting my memoir, I found a bonus – something I knew before COVID-19, but had forgotten about thanks to skipping from one project to another.
When rewriting my memoir, I am transported to a different period in my life – in the mid to late 1950s, the 1960s and early 1970s – the grey ages as I call them. I think it is because it is the past that it gets me out of these horrid COVID-19 times for a few hours at a time. Even though life was not easy for me back then, it is done; it is the past, and I guess it comes under nostalgia.
Writing fiction – short stories, novels, novellas – can also transport you out of COVID-19 times – unless that is what your fiction is about. I don’t really recommend that, but if that is where your creativity and ideas lie, I’m not going to say “don’t do it”. It would be fiction based on fact, so go for it.
My Beyond mysteries are set in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The setting is loosely based on where I was living in the late 1990s until I moved back to Toronto. But I have been back to Aurora, Ontario (where I lived from 1975 to late 1998) and also to nearby Newmarket many times since then, but of course today shows the changes in those now small cities, which were large towns when I moved out.
You could say these novels are nostalgic too, although they are fiction, not my story. But again, I’m out of COVID-19 times, temporarily, thanks to writing Beyond Truth, and I am doing something creative. It doesn’t matter what terrible things happen in my novels – they are fiction and each has an ending.
So, escape into creativity for a few hours each day. It will raise your spirits, is good for the mind and body, too. And you have accomplished something and created something as well.
So…
Just write.
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford, author of the Beyond mysteries. All available in e-copies at Amazon. Link for Beyond Faith here.
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Tags: Beyond mystery series, Dana Bowman, Memoir Writing in COVID-19 Times, Novel writing, Sharon A. Crawford, Writing in COVID-19 Times, Writing Nostalgia
Sometimes I think my mind is fried. Or imitating (badly) the Energizer bunny. A lot of that is dealing with all the changes and problems that arise from COVID-19 and how it has changed all our lives whether we get sick or not.
I sit down at my computer to rewrite a short piece to submit to an anthology. Or I go back into rewriting my memoir and think – my writing/rewriting here is crap. Not as good as earlier in the memoir. Or go back to writing the latest Beyond mystery novel – Beyond Truth. Or write a blog post (I have two blogs). I am also doing the final edit of a client’s long novel – which is interesting and suspenseful but requires a heavy edit. Then something related to COVID-19 interferes.
Interference could be something as basic as going grocery shopping. Yes, I hate lining up outside stores, and dealing with a lot of the crap from store employees that is really the fault of their manager’s bad organization and training. I have dropped those few stores off my shopping list and go elsewhere. No, the big thing about grocery shopping interfering with my writing is when I have to grocery shop. Being a senior with a disability, I am encouraged to shop in off-peak hours. So, no more evening or weekend grocery shopping (which I was doing, so I could write and edit during the day on weekdays, best times for that), except for the local Shoppers Drug Mart, a five-minute walk from me where I go just after 9 a.m. every other Saturday. I am not an early morning person, thanks to health issues, but I can do 9.15 a.m. close to home. Not so grocery stores. But I have found that during lunch time or just after lunch time the grocery stores (and the buses to get there and back) are not busy, partly thanks to social distancing, partly due to off-peak times. But because of dietary restrictions and grocery items’ cost, I have to go to a couple of grocery stores (besides the Shoppers which carries some groceries). So, despite my plan to grocery shop every two weeks, I find that time-line is stretched into two or three days – one shop a day. Doing all three in one day is too tiring (i tried that the first time and after I got home, collapsed on the couch). And then I run out of some fresh veggies and fruit like lettuce and bananas in-between the two weeks.
Now getting into gardening season, there are all the garden supplies to chase down – from seed catalogue orders put in that are slow to arrive to stores carrying gardening supplies cum hardware stuff now on the “unessential business ” list for in-store shopping and they are using alternative ways. Plus I don’t drive so can’t do curb-side pickup (per se)… I think you get the picture. Dealing with business emails is enough extra, now there are emails and news stories related to COVID–19 to keep up with. What’s a writer to do? Tear his or her hair out. Maybe, hairdressing services are not on the essential business list – but dry cleaners are. Go figure.
I do a daily “to’do” list the evening before. But sticking to it??? I need to do some heavy changes mixed in with some softer actions. Heck, I’m a writer. I am creative. So besides following the “to do” list, I am going to try the following and I’m keeping itbasic. the three D’s – Dilute, Delay, Dump. And the three R’s – Review, Re-arrange, and Relax.
How are you as a writer coping with all the COVID-19 confusion, worry, anxiety and fear? Please comment. And speaking of relax – time for my daily walk in the neighbourhood and looking for signs of spring and crossing the street or walking on the street if someone is coming the other way. That’s rude, I think,
As for some of my writing – the anthology submissions, they are ready to go (finally) and will go out as soon as I hear back from the editor about if they can be all submitted as one email attachment or… I know…dealing with all this COVID-19 business has fried my brain. But not enough to fry my creativity.
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford, author of the Beyond mysteries. All available in e-copies at Amazon. Link for Beyond Faith here.
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Tags: Beyond Faith and Sharon A. Crawford, Beyond mystery series, Business of Writing, Writing in COVID-19 Times, Writing Time
Sharon A. Crawford author 