18 Comments

At this point, I do not know what to say. I am probably struggling to even write an appropriate response. It is hard. It is difficult to even breathe at some moments. All I end up doing is stare at a blank document or watch the cursor moving from one point to another. But it feels great to know that one is not alone in the struggle. Indeed what really helps is mere acknowledgement that things are difficult, it is not just about us and it is okay to not perform at your peak in these times of pandemic. I am not a professional writer but the struggle to produce, create, write or reflect is real.

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Akashleena, thank you for commenting and letting me know you are struggling, too. One thing that is helping me is lowering my expectations of myself, in terms of both word count and quality, on first drafts. In other words, ditching the perfectionism. Good luck!

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Thank YOU so much for the post. I will definitely keep this in mind. Your advice on first drafts reminds me of Anne Lamott's piece on shitty first drafts. All the best to you for your projects and thanks once again!

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Yes, yes. Anne Lamott said it first, and best!

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Thank you for sharing. I'm not a person who makes goals just on New Year's Eve; I sort of make goals year round. However, in addition to my goal to drink a little less wine and exercise most day (both of which I have proudly accomplished), my goal this year was to have a quiet, drama-free year with no change, and to be more productive with my writing. The reason: Too much change the previous years, and devastating changes at that. My 17-year-old daughter died by suicide in August 2018. The following February I filed for divorce. That was finalized in April 2019, and then I moved into a humble house that needed a lot of work. Plumbing kept breaking, and I learned that water, proper drainage and my use of water in the house is pretty darn important. Through all these changes I wrote (I work full time as a science writer at a university and also freelance) and even took on an adjunct position teaching science journalism. But I had not been nearly as productive as I could be. So 2020 was going to be my YEAR. Doing fun things on the weeks that my younger daughter was with her dad, not being tied down to someone else's expectations. Writing at least 2 major freelance pieces. And clearly the pandemic has dampened that. The daily struggle to put out as much writing as I want has been real. I managed to finish a lengthy profile (freelance) that will be out in January, and I have never been so excited to be at the fact-checking stage in my life. I'm not stuck, but I am....slower. Here's to hoping things improved for all of us. I think if we keep showing up, putting one foot forward, we'll eventually all make it through this stronger than before. I am feeling the call to start on a book project in 2021 and hope I have the fortitude to buckle down and hash out that plan.

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Deanna, thank you for sharing all this. You have been through so much — I can't even begin to imagine what it has all been like. Kudos to you for being able to achieve as much as you have been through all this! It is inspiring to me, knowing that it's possible to keep going, given all that. "I think if we keep showing up, putting one foot forward, we'll eventually all make it through this stronger than before." Yes. Let's do this. Good luck with your book project, your academic work, you freelance work, the profile you have coming out. I hope that in 2021, you get to have YOUR YEAR after all.

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The day my workplace shut down in March because of the pandemic I got word that one of my articles made it into this year's Best American Science and Nature Writing. Because the pandemic was raging and the topic was about my daughter's death, I felt guilty that I was excited about the achievement. That seems "messed up" but it's the strange reality of things, and I still have guilt about it (the article is here if you want to read it: https://aeon.co/essays/when-a-childs-mental-health-diagnosis-comes-too-late-to-help). And then I am the type who's like, what if I never achieve this level again? Silly amount of pressure we put on ourselves. Funny thing is I felt unworthy of submitting it to Longreads, lol!

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First of all, Deanna, congrats! That's incredible. I know how hard it is to get an essay accepted into the Best American series. Second, I can see how that particular achievement would bring up complicated emotions. Don't beat yourself up for that — it makes sense. I look forward to reading the piece. Thank you for sharing this, and the link. <3

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Thank you so much for writing this. I am 100% struggling to write right now, and my thought patterns are very very similar to yours--who gives me the right to write, is this even good, what does it even matter, do people even care about my voice--but it also has some existential dread as well... I am just finishing a big project (a doctorate thesis that I really really fucking hate) and im feeling things shift inside me and im still figuring out what that means and what kind of writer i want to be. needless to say this feels extra fucking terrifying during a global pandemic and living between three fascistic states (UK, US and Brazil). Again, thank you for sharing.

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Nicole, thank YOU for sharing, as well. You're voicing something I forgot to mention, which is that as I'm living through this unprecedented time, my perspective on some of the things I'm writing about is shifting. The book I proposed a year ago is going to be different than the way I proposed it, which also means I need to reprocess my thinking...which makes it all more work. Happy to have this work — this is a happy problem. But it's still hard. Good luck with your thesis, and navigating life in those three countries.

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Dying (but not literally because it needs to be said these days). Right now, I hear a television show my son watches that I loathe, my husband should be at work and is not, and my daughter started her period before school and I can tell it's going to be a day. All this, feet from the dining room table where I supposedly write.

Here's the thing: there's little space in this 1926 home built for mice, there's a to-do list 5425 bullet points long, it's never quiet, "asynchronous" learning drops in my lap every day like the hottest potato, and who am I writing for, really, other than myself? And that is the shameful luxury, the selfish guilt, the waste of time I feel. That last part, "waste of time," flew from my fingers faster than I could call it back. It's hard to see myself as valued above the things I'm supposedly valued for — washing yesterday's dishes, doing last week's laundry, walking with my son to raid Pokemon, holding 40 minutes on the Worst IVR ever, shopping for milk and eggs because my oldest decided to make "something," and then suggesting to a frantic friend where her family can get rapid COVID tests. As I write this sentence, my husband is nonchalantly reading the news next time. And my anger is palpable. It's as if All The Things are screaming at me to pay attention to them. And no one hears the pitch but me.

What's frustrating, honestly, is my inability to put myself first and set boundaries when my son wakes before dawn, and I'm exhausted by 8 p.m. but still watch Guy's Grocery Games because my teen wants me to care.

My husband is slurping his coffee now and my blood pressure is rising. My mug, meanwhile, is getting cold and that's how life as a writer feels now: neglected.

Thank you for this space. I haven't been alone in this house since March and it feels good, here, to know it's mine.

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Genene, thank you for sharing what you are dealing with. I consider myself fortunate to have a much simpler life-setup — married but no kids. (Thanks, endometriosis and adenomyosis! Lol.) I don't know how so many women writers especially are getting through this time, when so much more is being asked of them, and space and time are more difficult to carve out. I try to remind myself that I have it easier. (Although sometimes that turns into mental self-flogging, and I have to stop.) What you wrote here is good and well said, and I hope you use it in your writing, somewhere!

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Thank you so much for writing this. I am struggling too, with all of it. I finished an MFA in Visual Narrative this summer through a low-res program at SVA in New York. The last summer of the program, which was supposed to have been in residence at the school, back in the studio for one last great push through with my classmates and friends that was to culminate with an exhibition and graduation all happened online. I had plans to write a proposal for a book based on my thesis, a memoir in visual essays, which an editor and others had encouraged me to do. And I had been so excited to start some new work and start submitting and pitching. I started something small, wrote it and even started sketching for it, and it has sat on the corner of my desk now for two months. Every time I think about working on it or anything else (I have 3 good project ideas tacked to my bulletin board in the studio!), I go through a process of self-punishment/self-doubt similar to what you have shared. Who am I to write anything? Just who do I think I am? And with all of the noise and awfulness, who cares? And in order to feel like I'm doing SOMETHING other than doomscroll, I've taken on a hair-raising amount of freelance day job copywriting work which I am in the process of trying to dig out from under, because, as thankful as I am to have paying work, being too busy, busy, busy to do my own work is not the answer. The answer, I think, lies in what you are doing, Sari, which is to show up and do a little bit every day until the little bit adds up to something. Oh, but this all feels so awful right now.

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Susanne, thank you for telling me about your particular struggle. It totally sucks that your MFA program and book proposal plans have been hijacked by this awful time. If you can carve out a small amount of time, one day at a time, you might find your way back to the work you love. Sometimes I've found that when I'm extra busy, I am more able to find time than when I have lots of time to fuck off. There's something about the compression that helps me got purposeful and focused. Good luck with your work. If I can do this, you can do this. I look forward to seeing your visual memoir in essays out in the world some day!

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Thanks for writing this. My goal was to write five CNF essays this year. But after March I could not write. The well was dry. No. Poisoned, by all our daily news trauma. The water finally returned. But the only structure I could muster was a string of Twitter-length reactions to our collective litany of daily horrors. I wrote about how I couldn't write. But I was writing.

I recently joined Scribophile. When I can't find my own words, I engross myself in offering feedback on other writers' words. This helps. I loose track of time doing the edits. But I connect with the people whose stories I'm reading. Which helps when I can't even have friend over for dinner and don't know when I will get to see my mom again. She just turned 80. No cake.

My litany of self-doubts looks a lot like yours. I also tell myself, "Other people have it much worse than you right now." Then I tell myself that just because this person broke their leg and I only broke my finger, doesn't mean my finger doesn't hurt. Let me tend to my poor little finger. There, there, little finger. You matter.

I don't know if you need a booster, but I care about your life and perspective on things. I know, because I enjoy reading your blog.

Thanks for writing.

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Good to hear from you, Rachel, and to know there's one more writer out there who can relate to my pandemic-time struggle. I had never heard for Scribophile before. Will check it out. I can definitely use a boost — thank you for letting me know you are interested in what I write about! And for reminding me that although our pain is relative, it's still pain. I hope you will get to see your mom soon, and celebrate her birthday belatedly. (My mom recently turned 80, too.) Thanks for dropping a line!

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Hello Sari...Your observations are bang on. It's up and down for me. Some days, I'm energized and others I'm paralyzed. I spent eight years on my memoir. I plugged away at it between journa gigs. While writing it I watched as my print markets started to dry up and disappear and I buried both parents (which by the way makes writing about my family easier and more difficult). Now I'm in the awkward position of doing the submission dance in a pandemic. I've had one rejection (too commercial) from an indie press in Toronto. I'm stymied as to where to send it next. The big houses want an agent and the small houses find my satire too commercial. The local presses in my province are few and don't like my literary journalism or reviewing. Rock. Hard place. I may self-publish. Poor Patricia. I hear she had to self-publish. LOL. My issues aren't real problems. They are middle class problems since I have a roof over my head, food security and time to write. As you say, many people are far worse off. And who are we to write our stories? I'm reminded of Tillie Olson's Silences. We must give voice to our experiences. Life Writing is engaging, valid and worthwhile. I feel for you navigating the writing process on a tight deadline in a pandemic while you juggle other paid work and adjust to the job change. I find that exercise saves me. It boosts my mood and brings on fresh ideas. I also suggest you read Virginia Woolf's A Writer's Diary. She went through similar struggles writing during war time and doing j-work. Sending you strength and looking forward to more emails about your Adventures in Journalism. I love your honesty. It's bracing and reinforcing. Thank you, Sari.

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Thank you so much, Patricia! for sharing your story, and for your kind words and support. I haven't read Woolf's A Writer's Diary and will get it on your recommendation. Good luck with your submissions and your book. Judging by this response, you have a smart, funny voice, and a publisher would be wise to grab you.

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