Even before I was published, writing, which to me has always been about the weaving of stories for other people, has been part of the very fabric of my life and my being. Since my first book was published, thirty years ago precisely, I have felt lucky, indeed, blessed, to earn my living doing what I’ve always felt I was born to do. Aside from my public work, working emotions out through writing them down in journals and diaries has always helped put things into perspective in times of personal crisis.
Two horrors happened in quick succession where we live last year: severe drought and wildfires. In an earlier Writer Unboxed post, What Do You Save? I wrote a bit about that—the first time I’d been able to write anything public about what it felt like, despite having written a fair bit about it in my journals. It had taken months to process those feelings into anything properly coherent, and during that time I also turned to a childhood love, painting. The feel of the paint on the paper, the sweep of the brush, was a calming and helpful thing, and as non-public as the journal writing. Then the fires stopped and the rains came, ending the drought. Everything turned green, gloriously green, and the joy of it ran in my writing veins like that life-giving water. It didn’t last long, that joyful respite. All around the world humans are facing another kind of horror, invisible this time, but more dangerous, unpredictable and baffling. Strangely, it’s reversed the previous situation for us here in one way: drought and fires made our home feel unsafe; now the pandemic can make our home feel like the only safe place.
Like most writers, I’ve always worked from home, at my messy desk in the lounge room. I have never had any problem with disciplining myself, or had writer’s block, though there are times when I’ve written more than others, or less, depending on what else was going on. Flexibility has always been part of my modus operandi. When working from home is no longer a choice for you but an absolutely must, and your family scattered far and wide, your friends, and indeed everyone else you know must do the same, even if they normally go to offices or other separate worksites, then it changes the story. Played out within a wider global plot-line of nightmarish intensity and bizarre, surreal twists, and against personal worries for the safety, health and economic well-being of loved ones, friends, neighbors and local communities, this story of a writing life transformed might seem little. It is the one I know best, though, and certainly the only one I feel qualified to expand on publicly. Here are some of the impacts that these singular times have had on my own writing life, and how I’ve tried to deal with it. I offer this in the hope it might help other writers struggling with similar things.
*A sense of irrelevance and purposelessness led to the novel I’d almost finished coming to a stuttering halt seven weeks ago. Its setting and theme suddenly seemed of another time. How on earth was I going to end it in the all’s-well-that-ends-well mode that I’d planned. Should I change that, or somehow fold in a mention of the pandemic? Wouldn’t that be an ignoble cashing-in? For almost six weeks, it stayed in total limbo—and I only restarted it a week or so ago. I think I’ve found a solution—but I’m not sure yet. I’m advancing cautiously, painfully slowly. But at least I’m advancing again. Before the pandemic I would have felt impatient about it; now I’ve accepted it, because I’ve allowed myself to understand that it’s okay to press ‘pause’ in a time that is so very far from normal.
*After a couple of weeks of finding I couldn’t bring myself to write in my normal journals (a family-centered one, and a books-centered one) I decided to start a specific journal, a kind of ‘ journal of the plague year’. This one’s specifically about my personal experience of the present situation, and for it I used a special journal I’d been given a few years ago by a publisher, which ironically enough I’d always kept ‘for a special purpose.’ I’ve gone back to my childhood love of scrapbooks with it, and so it’s got all sorts of bits and pieces stuck in it too, as well as writing. At the beginning, I needed to write in it practically every day, to try and exorcise the bad feelings and highlight small moments of beauty and grace. Now I am much more relaxed about it, and I often miss days at a time, then go back to it, and it feels easier to write in it. I can now also write in the other journals without feeling obscurely guilty…
*The novel might have been set aside for a while, but a sense of urgency overtook me, not only around possibilities for my own work, but also the situation for parents suddenly having to home-school. This led to me turning into reality some ideas that had been knocking around in my head for a while: such as producing, in collaboration with an illustrator friend, creative activity packs available online, and recording an illustrated talk about the inspiration and process around several of my picture books. I worked on these over several weeks and that helped to start up the stalled novel again. They were fun and creative to do, and while working on them I was in that other world, not thinking about the pandemic. Collaborating with Kathy on the creative activity packs was truly an uplifting thing for both of us, and so was the warm, positive response from people who accessed them. Though it took a lot of time and wasn’t paid work, it was a worthwhile investment of time in terms of potential new paid gigs.
*A sense of sympathy for authors and illustrators whose new books came out during this period of shrinking publicity opportunities and closed bookshops, as well as for those who, like me, were trying to reinvent ourselves in various ways, led me to reach out in a few ways. I offered guest post spots on my blog to authors with new books, and made directory listings for the creative activities and resources other people promoted. I’m very much a book-buyer in normal times, but right now I’m buying even more books. This supports authors and our wonderful local bookstore which, despite closing its physical doors, has innovated in delightful ways, such as free local delivery to my mailbox. It’s quite an event in these stay-at-home-times, to see their orange and white Kombi drawing up at my door and finding the beautifully wrapped book parcel in my mailbox! An added pleasure is that I’ve been making moments of book-parcel-joy myself for the dear little people in our lives, who are far away from us in Sydney.
*A sense of needing another creative outlet led me to not only continuing the experiments in painting I’d started back when drought and bush-fires were the horrors haunting us, but also creating little objects such as eccentric painted postcards to send to family and friends, making models out of Sculpey clay (inspired by the activities created by my friend and collaborator Kathy Creamer), and other bits and bobs. That was fun, pure play, without any pressure to be anything else at all. It’s what I do on the weekends now, along with reading, walking around our neighborhood with my husband, and talking to family and friends on the phone or on Zoom. For too long as a full-time writer I’ve allowed the weekend to simply be rolled into my work-from-home schedule; now, suddenly, that’s changed. And that’s definitely something for the better, as is the sense that I’m rediscovering certain things from childhood: like the scrapbook-making, and the enjoyment of creative play, and deep-dive reading, and the anticipatory joy of the mailbox. Small things, perhaps, but a comfort.
Over to you: how have these ‘singular times’ impacted on you as a writer, literary professional, or as a reader—or indeed, all three?
About Sophie Masson
Sophie Masson has published more than fifty novels internationally since 1990, mainly for children and young adults. A bilingual French and English speaker, raised mostly in Australia, she has a master’s degree in French and English literature. Sophie's new e-book on authorship, By the Book: Tips of the Trade for Writers, is available at Australian Society of Authors.
Sophie, thank you for sharing your experiences. It’s too easy here in the USA to forget about the craziness that was already happening in other parts of the world before the pandemic. Now that we are in the soup with everyone else, I can only hope that we develop a deeper sense of empathy and compassion. I caretake a farm and write every day, so not a lot has changed for me. In fact, I’ve been reveling in the deep silence and the influx of wildlife. But I miss human contact and I worry for the children who are missing that, too. I love what you said about cherishing the small things. “The anticipatory joy of the mailbox.” You’ve reminded me that even a small light shines more brightly in the dark.
Thank you so much for your beautiful comment, Susan. Yes, living in the countryside(as we do as well) gives us many positives in a time like this, but as you say, it’s the human contact that we miss the most of all. And those small things become even more important…
A lovely read, Sophie. Uplifting and inspiring. I’m using my everyday diary to accept all the things I was looking forward to but are now cancelled and instead to enter all the enjoyable little things I’m experiencing each day using words and stickers to decorate.
Thank you for your nice words, Pat, glad you liked the piece. And I love the way you are using your diary to turn a negative into a positive–beautiful idea, and must be fun to create, as well!
As a full-time publishing professional, I already worked mostly remotely from home. And as a writer I worked from home. So the way things changed for me most significantly is never having the solitude I am used to in order to truly concentrate and lose myself in my work–because of course my son is home and my husband, though he still goes to his office (he is a pastor and is the only one going in at this time) most days, he is definitely home more because he is unable to do the kind of in-person ministry he normally would.
So basically, it’s like summer break started in mid-March and will stretch on at least through August (but as seems more and more likely, through the end of the year? Or longer???). And summers have always been hard on my writing.
I’m not super involved in my older independent learner’s schooling (he’s great at getting his work done and being in the four Zoom meetings he has each day with his teachers). But the fact that I am never alone (and can’t really go anywhere to be alone) has severely hamstrung my writing. That and, until this week, my son was using my personal laptop much of the day to do the Zoom meetings.
And even though I still believe in the story I’ve been working on, and it is still relevant and important on a personal level (theme-wise), and it takes place in the recent past so I have no need to think of what to do with Covid-19 in it…I just don’t have the mental white space or the physical aloneness I need to lose myself in it.
So I’ve been busying myself with deep cleaning, home organization, yard work, and baking, and I’m breaking out the sewing machine again because I’ve been losing weight and running low on clothing that actually fits. Basically doing a number of things that, if they weren’t done, would gnaw at the back of my mind that they needed to get done. So in that way I feel like I’m preparing myself to be able to write again. I will run out of “other stuff” to do and hopefully feel that writing is the way to fill the time. But I just don’t know what to do about the constant company in the house.
If we could get some decent weather up here in Michigan, I could probably find some solitude outside. But it’s been snowing in May. MAY! And now there’s some pretty constant rain coming our way. I may have to just drive to an empty parking lot somewhere and write in my car.
Thank you for sharing your experience, Erin. I can well imagine it must indeed be difficult when it’s the beloved company of your loved ones which is the main stumbling block to getting the mental space needed for writing.–and even having access to the simple tools of writing, like the laptop. I think that at times like this that we realise that the familiar pattern and routine of our everyday lives is an essential background to our creative lives, and not to have it really throws you..quite apart from any of the wider issues.
I hope that you find a way to write despite all the difficulties, and that the weather improves too. Wishing you all the very best!
Sophie, thanks for sharing these thoughts and ideas. I like the idea of a pandemic-specific journal. Capturing what this unprecedented time meant in terms of the impact on real people creates a living history of this unparalleled time. I wrote a blog post about it. My work in progress is so close to being publication-ready that I am nit going to touch it. Besides it takes place during a specific span of years well before 2020. I cannot say how this will affect me as a writer, though I do have a much greater appreciation for the power of social connection and what we miss when we are not able to connect in person.
You are always an inspiration, Sophie. It is nice to see some of the inner workings of your writing life. Every author seems to have a different approach to their writing and I always enjoy seeing how stories come to life. Anthony Trollope famously would finish a novel and 1:00 Pm and immediately start another to finish his very disciplined work day. Though you and I work in different arenas of children’s literature, happily intersecting from time to time, I have felt many of the same urgencies that you have shared. Since I can no longer be with the kids in my many classes, I have tried to up my output of recordings and printable stories so that they know that I haven’t abandoned them. My teachers play my recordings so that the kids can still have “Mr Topp” day. I also feel a sense of loss not being with the classes, a loss that no amount of virtual connection can replace. Hope against hope that next fall classroom classes return.
Thank you very much for your kind words, Bob, glad you enjoyed the piece. Ha, Trollope-type productivity is astonishing, isn’t it: designed maybe to never leave a blank space where a writer’s block might creep in :-)
What you have always done with Read Me A Story, Ink is always so wonderful–and in these times, the value of it shines even more, it is a real treasure-chest for children, parents and teachers, and can help keep up that sense of story-connection you’ve nurtured over many years.
I can well imagine however how much you must miss the actual experience of being with the classes, being able to interact with them in real life–the virtual is a helpful place-holder in these situations, but cannot replace the warmth and fun of that in-person connection. I hope very much too that in the fall things will look brighter, more hopeful and safer, and that schools in the US can start going back, and those kids can have their Mr Topp days back again, as large as life!
The biggest effect for me as a writer is relating to transport: my second novel The Wound of Words is due to release on Friday and the paperback proof copy has yet to arrive from Australia. Closed borders don’t make for timely transport.
Oh dear, Deborah, that must be so frustrating! I hope that with the lifting of restrictions in NZ this week, that the postal/delivery system there gets back to normal. Hopefully release date can be moved forward a little and booksellers can wait to get their copies…
Sending you best of luck for the book!
Congratulations on your new book, Deborah! I am confident it will find its way slowly into the hands of your readers. That’s the beauty of books! They never go out of style.
Thanks for your comment, CG.
I am glad your writing has not been immediately affected, but as you say, it’s hard to know the ongoing impact…Yes, it is indeed a time when we fully and viscerally realise the importance of social connection–and even though I am so grateful that we have the internet including the wonderful possibility of live if virtual connection with family and friends that way, it doesn’t and can’t replace the warmth and meaningfulness of actually being with people, in person.
When I was about 20 I remember reading the last book in the Anne of Green Gables series, Rilla of Ingleside where the story is part diary as Anne’s youngest daughter chronicles the start and duration of World War 1 from the perspective of a young woman, a sweetheart, a sister, a daughter, a neighbour and a volunteer.
When the droughts were at their worst before Christmas and then the fires eclipsed even that horror, I found my WIP stopped, seemingly irrelevant and flat compared to the horrors we were seeing each day on TV and experiencing first hand. I think as a nation we had been so schooled in a WTF mentality over summer of what else could possibly happen, that Covid-19 was just another straw on the heavily loaded cart of dramas we were carrying to some unknown destination. The angst of the world unfolding as it has, needed to be diarised – what we were living through needed recording, but I found that trying to record, as LM Montgomery, through Rilla, did, the unfolding dramas day after day was too much.
I have journaled since I was a child, the writing comes as second nature, but all I could do was give a cursory nod in my writing to the sheer suffering and numbers. I realised that writing of an event of this magnitude and complexity might be best done from the distance of time. So for now I plod on in a pedestrian way in my diary, noting more the family events and the weather and the colours of the lorikeets when they come to eat on my balcony each morning, rather than the body bags or the idiocy of world leaders.
I’ve stopped beating myself up for not writing – my writer’s group are generously tolerant of my lack of participation, though they all seem to be writing well. I think instead this is just a time to ‘be’. I can’t think too far ahead, and I can’t dwell on what has happened. I just have to trust that the writing will come back when my subconscious lets me feel safe again.
In the meantime the wonderful stoicism of the Australian and indeed the world’s people makes me feel proud to be part of this race. It has restored my faith in humans – well most of them – and hopefully this will give me more than enough subject material once I’m ready to get back to the keyboard.
Thanks for this writing Sophie. It really does affect us so deeply. Beautifully written and insightful.
Thank you so much, Diane, for your lovely words about my piece, and thank you for sharing this thoughtful, vivid and touching description of your own response to this situation we all find ourselves in. You are so right about that WTF feeling here in Australia and the image of the overladen cart of suffering and bewilderment heading who knows where is sadly all too relatable.
And yes, I totally sympathize with the feeling that in the journal you simply cannot do much more than give a cursory nod to the appalling nature of what’s going on worldwide, because what can you really say about it that is anything more than a platitude in the face of such things? All you can do is just focus on your own experience of it, and express honestly all those ways in which it impacts on your own life, as well as all those moments of beauty and grace which are also still a part of your life.
It’s great you have such a supportive writing group and I think it helps also to see that many many other writers have had and are having similar problems. That was one of the reasons I wrote this piece–because although I’ve been writing professionally for such a long time and overcome all sorts of challenges along the way, the effects on my writing of this series of horrors has taken me by surprise, and I found that hard to articulate till now. I hoped it might encourage other writers to recount their own struggles–then we know we are not alone in feeling these perplexing and challenging reactions.
I hope that as things get better, so will the writing get easier.
And as you say, the positive things emerging from this crisis, and the stoicism, fellow-feeling and kindness displayed by so many people around the world–many many more than those who display unpleasant traits– gives us much space for hope.
Sophie, as soon as I saw your column I remembered that Australians already had to deal with the terrible fires and now this. Thank you so much for sharing what it’s like been for you. I’m glad your creativity is alive and well and finding other outlets.
Like many, I work from home so I’ve not had much of an upheaval in my life but there are many changes, like having husband and college kids home all the time. Although online schooling hasn’t been ideal, we love having this extra time with our children. We’ve settled into a routine and now that my kids are done with school, they are happy to work in the local grocery store.
I’ve been working more on short stories and my daughter has been making art for them. It’s been such fun for us. I find myself writing more letters, especially to those who live alone and I sense are lonely. I miss meeting with my critique group. Although they use Zoom to meet online, I find I’m not a fan of most online activities, save this forum and the SCBWI message board. I continue to read lots of books and find myself buying more since the library is closed. All of us are bookish so our piles are growing.
Thank you for your kind words about my piece, Vijaya, I am glad you liked it. Thank you too for sharing your experiences as a writer and reader during this period. I love the sound of what you and your daughter have been creatively collaborating on together, it certainly sounds like lots of fun! And it is a beautiful thing too to send solace to the lonely through letters, I think everyone appreciates so much now finding letters and cards in their mailbox, and even more if they are on their own. It somehow feels more personal, doesn’t it, than getting an email–and it lasts longer than a phone or Zoom call.
Such an inspiring post, Sophie.
Thanks for sharing and thanks for all you have done for authors like me with new books out during this difficult time.
As a reader who always bought lots of books, I’ve been buying more than ever.
You’ve been putting your time to such good use. I haven’t been able to work on major projects either.
It reminds me of that time when my kids were small and I didn’t have the hours or the energy to hold a complex plot in my head and so I wrote picture books and as the kids got older and I had more time, my books got longer and more complex.
I hope you’re able to immerse yourself in your novel again soon.
Thank you very much for your lovely comment, Dee, glad you like the post.
It is a pleasure to help, even if it’s in a small way, fellow authors whose books have come out at such a difficult time. The more we can support each other, the better we can all cope with the challenges..
I know just what you mean re comparing the present creative headspace with a time when you are in the midst of small-kid-raising-whirlwind, too! You have to do tailor projects to that headspace, don’t you?
Hope your new books do really well, and that in time you can settle to tackling another book project.
Thanks Sophie,
At first it was a bit scary having my books released during Covid-19 but I have felt so supported by you and other authors and readers and bookstores. Thank you again.
Looking forward to a time when we can immerse ourselves again in story worlds we create.