From The Bookseller:
Are you feeling the pressure? As we start a ‘new term’, post-restrictions, I know many authors are feeling compelled to start or continue at a certain pace. But we are still in or recovering from trauma, so before you think about what it is possible for you to achieve, please think about how you are and how you can look after yourself and others more.
There is a lot of advice circulated about maximising productivity, but what do we really need to get decent work done? It is lovely to have an office or a dedicated room, but if circumstances demand that you work at your kitchen table, or on your lap, so be it. If you wait for those perfect circumstances, you will never start, so always go with what you have. I write at the kitchen table and am frequently interrupted. I go with it and use headphones for busy times. Remember that genius exists in the finest library, but also at a scruffy kitchen table. If you think you must assemble ideal terrain before you start, then you are deferring your creativity to fate. You may feel down, sad or grieving. But you can write in rage and sadness, too. Maybe not yet, but you will. Sometimes, little bits of story unfurl within your own sad tale; cling to them, because they are still precious. I have spent the pandemic home schooling, guiding, Skype teaching, being ill, but, most of all, under the pressure of caring for a very poorly offspring with little external support. This has forced me to adjust my notions both of what productivity is and of the conditions in which it is sustained.
And what about the adage of writing every day? Pah! Tremendous if this is you, but I cannot do it, and you mght not be able to either, for a whole host of reasons. This does not mean you cannot produce a book. Again, go with what is available to you. Thinking, reading, listening; you may not have committed words to the page, but a process is still ongoing. Stay in your lane; understand that comparison is futile. Your situation is unique to you and wondering if someone else is doing better will simply erode energy and confidence.
Pondering is the writing, too. The work.
Link to the rest at The Bookseller
As we start a ‘new term’, post-restrictions, I know many authors are feeling compelled to start or continue at a certain pace.
How did restrictions affect authors?
In my case, I was forced to lose all meaningful contact with my friends, because for about a year there was a $1,500 fine here for having visitors in your house. Couldn’t go out to eat, couldn’t go out to movies or shows or museums, all sporting events cancelled, national parks closed, zoo closed, libraries closed. For a time, even the city parks were closed. By the end of all this, my mental health was approximately zero.
It’s tough to write when you are going stir-crazy from being a prisoner under house arrest.