Writing During the Time of Covid

I'm writing this on Sunday, on the eve of PM Boris’s announcement about possible lockdown measures. By the time you read this, you will know what is being proposed.

During the first lockdown, it wasn’t only Joe Wicks who appeared on our computer screens with lots of useful exercises. Writing courses and prompts rose up everywhere. In theory we had a lot more time to write, but many writers reported the opposite. Maybe they were juggling children not at school or struggling to reorganise and relocate their own (non-writing) working lives and offices into their kitchens. Additionally, we were all distracted by stress, wondering what would happen next, not going to church (except online), shopping for goods which had disappeared off the supermarket shelves, not seeing the people we loved, wondering if we or our family members would become ill, and generally adjusting to the ‘unusual times’.

But we’re better at all this now, aren’t we? Oh yes? Oh no?

Before March I was in a routine which included visits to family, church, work and - remember these? - holidays. Over the last six months, I have developed a new routine. This has needed to take into account my neck strain and headaches, which indisputably arise through computer use. It goes like this:
  • Morning, write, using computer.
  • Afternoon, do something else. Probably go for a walk and/or do some cooking.
  • Evening, read. Plan for future: do some hand-writing, rough drafts of new stories, to be transcribed on to computer later.
Except for church (Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings), Pilates classes (as scheduled) and paid work (whenever).


Looking at that, you’re probably thinking that this woman is not writing much at all. However, the composer Schubert composed music in the morning, caroused (and caught syphilis) in the afternoon and went to the theatre in the evening. Schubert’s output was prodigious. In fact, I’m doing a lot more than I was during the spring and early summer when I was all over the place.

I now need to plan how I'm going to use my mornings very carefully. I’ve started using the internet-famous Bullet Journal, which consists of daily/weekly, monthly and future lists of tasks and other commitments, thoughts and inspirations. One of the big things for me is that it’s completed through what we have come to call ‘analogue’, that is, not on computer. You write everything down by hand in a notebook. Remember that? All those smudgy rubber marks and squashed up letters at the end of the line? We are so used to writing something then editing immediately, aren’t we? But try the Bullet Journal. It’s liberating.

So, what works for you? How are you going to write in more restricted times? I’d love to hear.

Rosemary Johnson has had many short stories published, in print and online, amongst other places, Cafe Lit, Scribble, The Copperfield Review, Fiction on the Web and 101 Words. She has also contributed to Together magazine and Christian Writer. She has also written a historical novel, set in the Solidarity years in Poland. In real life, she is a retired IT lecturer, living in Suffolk with her husband and cat.






Comments

  1. Could you please come and live at my house and teach me how to be so organised?! The only thing is, I'm a little worried that you're so inspired by Schubert, given his bizarre routine. That made me laugh - getting syphilis in the afternoons and then going to the theatre in the evenings, although I doubt he was laughing much in the end and of course now he's busy DEcomposing because of it.

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  2. The temptations were all there for the poor man in Vienna in the 1820s!
    Seriously, though, Fran, search for Bullet Journal and you will find a lot of useful sites about bullet journaling. My daughter got me into it, and she's a journalist. The thing is you adapt the technique to suit yourself and it's all handwritten in a notebook.

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  3. I suppose I've always kept a form of bullet journal in 'a page to view' desk diary - and I could not manage without it! Somehow the writing down of a task takes away the stress of doing it - and then the satisfaction, with a pink pen, of ticking it off when completed!

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  4. Thanks for the tip. I’m going to look up bullet journal. I badly need more structure

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  5. Glad to hear you're not spending your afternoons carousing and catching syphilis.

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  6. Surely the first ever MTW blog ever to mention syphilis, and just for that, I doff my hat to you, Rosemary! Great read and I too will be looking up the Bullet Journal.

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  7. Thanks for that :) I am doing similar. Have a rough weekly schedule going. Desk time in the morning, housework (I use the term lightly) in the afternoon, reading or chatting with friends/fam in the evening. Friday and Sat evenings are TV, sofa and a glass of vino. It’s a new ish routine but I felt the days were drifting by and I needed some structure.

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  8. This is very helpful and I'll look into Bullet Journal. Currently I constantly write to-do lists in a spiral bound notebook and cross off items and then turn a page and write a new list but it means I have to go through my notebooks when I've finished them, and tear out and shred the pages I don't need any more and keep the pages with items on them I still haven't done.... would a Bullet Journal be better? I must investigate.

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  9. Exercise class: no, I'm not a sports enthusiast - but better than what Schubert used is something like Pilates on-line! A couple of classes a week counteracts the slothful sagging of Writers' Posture or that's the idea. Walking in nature - we've possibly all found we've noticed the changing seasons more this year, through trying to 'take exercise outdoors'. Really enjoyable time away from the desk. Lastly, because it may sound 'too pious', but we now begin the routine of the day with worship with the local Dominican Friars who live-stream daily at breakfast time.

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  10. Very interesting, Rosemary. When at home, I flop about to my Rosemary Conley Workout Video, shower, then take coffee up to the computer. The plan is - writing in the morning and housework /meet friends/walking in the afternoon. Needless to say, the housework never gets done.

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