Is anyone else thinking of writing some nonfiction about the virus and outbreak? I talked to a magazine editor I know who would like to see something on this from me. I'm not talking about writing news. There are plenty of journalists. I'm more talking about narrative nonfiction and/or personal essays. I imagine there are a lot of outlets where people could share their written stories about all this. Let's see how interesting I can make being quarantined...
I'm a fantasy author, so reality isn't much of an issue for me when it comes to writing. In terms of my personal life, the current situation doesn't change much since I was already sort of a shut-in and a natural loner. Mainly, due to having been mildly sick over the passed week, I've been somewhat more mindful of not unnecessarily exposing others to a potential infection. Honestly, it seems a lot of people are kinda overreacting to all of this.
I am writing more then normal because I have the time. Well I'm worried both about my own family, my parents are both older and of course I have my grandparents, I'm doing ok. I have been struggling in school for sometime so its nice to have a chance to take a step back. Staying connected to my family and friends helps a lot, as dose just living. I'm a fantasy writer and well my plot dose not considerate on anything related to a global virus I think the current circumstances have effected the way I think.
Since the virus became a big thing here I've been working overtime and any time I have between getting home and going to bed I'm so tired I can barley follow along a TV show - I'm not sure I'd even be able to make the words out if I tried to read. So no reading or writing what so ever on this end.
I just pitched a nonfiction piece about the coronavirus. I know the editor and they've taken work from me in the past. What I don't know is if everyone is writing about this or pitching these kinds of stories. If I were the editor, I would be buying all the stories I could that felt with this. This is where my focus would be. I can update you guys about the kind of response I receive if you're interested.
I can understand why some writers probably don't have time to write pieces about COVID-19, especially essays or what-not. However, in my opinion, this outbreak is likely to bring a lot of changes, social and economic, so I think writers who can or are able to should write about what's going on. I would definitely love an update on the response you receive!
I haven't been doing as much writing or reading as I'd like. I feel restless. I was totally fine with staying at home until it became mandatory. Now I feel like I need to leave my house. And I also have to work from home. So I feel like I have to be working or else I'll feel guilty because this ISNT a vacation..... I also have time to work on moving into my new house too, so there's that... I feel like I have to figure out how to re-manage my time effectively and I'm doing a poor job of it. I have been taking notes and doing a lot of planning so that when I do start, it will flow
I think I might use the blog on here to write some daily reports/journal entries/correspondence or whatever. When the restaurants went down I found myself smack in the middle of it, fighting hour to hour to save the business and the 40 employees that work there. My last 96 hours have been very interesting. The tone of this situation went from precautionary to triage in a hurry. And my wife is a nurse, so I'm getting the healthcare industry side of it on a daily basis too. Not to mention the time. Lord, am I going to have some time. I've never had time before... what's it like? I figure just about everyone is going to overdose on self reflection in the coming months, and I have no idea what mine is going to look like.
I'm still praying for a lock-down to hit my neck of the woods but the company I work for would rather have us all contract C19 than give us free time off.
Well, the pandemic does give us a chance to observe people in a (very mild) apocalyptic scenario, and how they react. I think there's a lot of potential writing material in the misinformation that's spreading around.
Same here, exactly. It's a little different now that I htink I've actually contracted the virus thoug, but really still the same. Different because I'm not worried about picking it up anymore, but the same because I don't want to go out and infect anybody else. So I'm still on lockdown. Absolutely!! I was thinking the same. My last trip to the grocery store looked like a scene from a zombie flick.
The situation I'm coming from isn't that much different to life under lockdown, so I'm already accustomed to what life is right now. Everyone else is having to learn, but me... . Just business as usual. The one thing that Covid has done for my writing is that I'm allowed to work from home. So I've more time and the time I've got is also quieter; which will be good for writing and organising thoughts.
Kudos to @deadrats for creating this thread. I think it’s a great initiative to take a theme as grim as the virus and, whatever experience or POV you have on it, use the moment to capture it in your writing. I’ve thought about incorporating the moment into a fictional piece somehow because for me - at the moment - it’s slightly “too real” to handle it as a non-fiction. A fictional piece could work because of some “social distancing” from the actual situation. Maybe, even.. therapeutic.. But... if I were to incorporate it into a fictional story, I’d probably have to call the virus something else entirely. The impact it’s had on the world, however, may be based on the actual. However, having “thoughts” about doing that and actually putting my pen to paper are two different things. Really.. I should get round to doing so. I’ve been “self-isolating” and have the time to also..
I was hoping this Covid pandemic would pass without affecting my work (RMT) but... yeh... So, for the next few months of quarantine, I should be writing more! But I'm worried about 100 different Covid related things that aren't even real or even happening yet that I'm just wracking with my brain on how to turn this tragedy into an opportunity. Opportunity to write, duh, but it just doesn't feel right. Guess I'm a little concerned.
A lot of people are referencing that famous example of Shakespeare writing King Lear during quarantine from the plague. I think the uncertainty for the first few days but me in such a sense of panic I wasn't able to do much, or at least I felt powerless over my drive to fuel my dread with endless news scrolling. It's almost like a weird drug addiction where the high is replaced with stress and anxiety. These last few days I've gotten into better habits. But still not much writing has been done. I want to edit my old stories, but in times like these it's hard to really care about that thing I was writing about some revelatory childhood day or whatever. Also, I can't seem to disconnect enough from this situation to get the insight required to tell stories. And I have very little interest in any of the things I previously though of incredible importance. I have started keeping journal more for my mental health than for any literary purpose. So when I'm beating myself up about another wasted day I can at least counter with 'well you wrote in your journal...' So it's good for that. Also, I've been working my way through Shakespeare's complete works. One of my reading goals has always been to read all of Shakespeare. I know that's pretentious. Well, I like pretending. It is interesting to be living through something which we know is going to define the future. And it's interesting how these zeitgeisty type moments seem to come at the beginning of a decade. I'm thinking 9/11. Then I was in Japan for the Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011. And now this at the beginning of 2020. I guess it'd work better if it was 2021. Writing a personal essay about living in quarantine could be good. I just feel like so much is being said about this and I think about it all the time, so when I write I'd like to focus on something else if I could.
A lot of the stress falls away once you actually catch the virus, and even more so when it passes and you no longer have to self-isolate. But now that I can go out there's not much to do out there. Maybe now the restlessness of forced quarantining will pass and I'll be better able to concentrate on projects. I was at least hopeful the fever would put me in one of those altered states of consciousness where great art is created, like when (was it Don Henley?) wrote Witchy Woman for the Eagles, or when Neil Young wrote You Are Like a Hurricane and Cinnamon Girl if I remember right. I guess it never got that intense though.
I've had bigger more important fish to fry, and that was before this Novel Corona 19 thing. So my writing has suffered WIP wise, and all I know is I will be making sure I don't get it, so I can finish my WIP.
You should count yourself lucky. My new job was taking up my writing time (and my forum time), then I start coughing, and the boss tells me to beat it. It's probably just a cold, but I guess that doesn't matter when everyone's freaking out. At least now I have time to write?
My class I'm on is private and only closed yesterday/Friday and my 2 week course to renew my CSCS card is postponed after 1 week. A teacher showed symptoms and carry'd on like nothing at first coughing and high fiveing me on Tuesday (the day I met him); by Friday I was trying my best to see if I'm showing symptoms or not, and he's still coming to work and I was dreading seeing him on Friday. I self isolated myself from public transport because I could just walk to and from class which was okay, like a 30 minute walk since I also was not in a rush because I was afraid of getting it in this classroom with this teacher showing symptoms as well as other guys some with the sniffles. My walk was through my neighborhood, then through the town's big cemetery to take me to another part of town everyday I was reminded of death; which was actually cool and tranquil and relaxing and I even started saying hello to tombstones I got to know on my walk. I saw on the news people in restaurants and bars and pubs defying advice while supermarkets have empty shelves as they're building our temporary morgue (one of many in cities in the UK). So I wrote this song while playing the guitar this week, I woke up everyday to the builders because also, home is a construction site, I've no symptoms but until things are wrapped up, self isolation is tricky, besides, I like the company lol, but, I didn't care who heard my new song, I sang it out, what I wrote on Thursday/the night before, in earshot of every body but it's my home, I was playing guitar and smoking my weed like it's my home (because it's my home)/I also had fun helping out since if like me you've worked in construction and hold a valid CSCS card for labourering, somethings are just common sense and when I wasn't being myself at home singing my songs etc... I was feeling like Site Manager (for a change) and I must say a construction worker working with contractors and tradesmen is fun and the site/my house was all nice and tidy and everything the renovation that's a day or 2 from being wrapped up after a month (at least) of lifestyle change for me)... I wrote this song. I wrote this on Thursday night with my guitar. When I woke up late with intention to go in late because I decided being tired wasn't good for my immune system, I slept in, woke up at 11 am Friday morning and on the phone saying I was late to hear I'd pass anyway that section of the course and I could catch up and I could still come in BUT because I could and felt safer/wanted to... I decided to turn my 'I'm being late' phone call to 'I'm going to be absent today' one. I had my TGIF / not having to see other cool but SYMPTOM SHOWING teacher - so I was glad, I decided to enjoy my Friday, with guitar and I got stoned and decided to sing my new song in my guitar practice which, was the first time that week the contractors who wake me up heard me at home that week so, it had a been a minute since they heard me singing/playing guitar (since I wasn't in class all day that day last Friday) and I just didn't care, decided .. ...'fuck it/if I'm a musician and I can't take performing seriously... SO I played in my home/construction site (no power so I had two acoustic guitars out (one 6 string ol' parlour) (Italian 1950's) and one 12 string (American 1960's parlor) and I debuted my new song because they were in ear shot when I wanted to work it so I decided 'fuck what they think of it, it's my song, I'm going to sing it' and I played my song on Friday/yesterday that I wrote Thursday when I was still going to class walking through this big peaceful tranquil cemetery (with COVID-19 on the back of my mind/reason I decided to walk to and from everyday) and seeing things on the news that made me think twice. THE SWEAT BEES IN MY EYES CORONA ON MY MIND ON MY WAY TO CLASS AS I CUT THROUGH THE CEMETERY TEMPORARY MORTUARY AND I’M NOT AFRAID HOW ARE YOU And I'm singing this in front of the builders and everything / over and over literally feeling at home not giving a damn who could hear - was cool.
I'm not writing much right now ... it's sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm glad I haven't written anything about an epidemic and what it can do to society, because this situation has shaped up to be something that I hadn't really foreseen at all, in ways I didn't expect. But if I do get around to writing such a thing, it's going to be a lot better than it would have been a few months ago.
Since they closed the schools here, I've been spending the time I supposedly was going to have to write doing almost anything but. Until this evening, when I got down to work. Until a minute ago, when I realized there's something that scares me more than the thought of getting this stupid virus: Have I just spent the last hour editing the wrong version of my novel? Am I going to have to find all those changes and make them again??? EDIT-- Whew! Don't know how I managed it, but turns out I did the little edits on the latest version, and the bigger, easier-to-copy-and-paste one on the earlier version. So all's well.
No. Even when I can't spend my holidays (which I earned the hard way) as I wanted, and the current overwintering team is 'lucky' to sit out this crisis away from it all. But if I'd be down there, my life for the last two months would never have happened—and that I'd have a problem with. I'm not going to unwish my life; the good, the bad, and the ugly
I said this to the builders as they finished last Monday finally allowing me and any symptoms I was having the ability to isolate; The work is complete now (that was good timing, took like a month at least); and I'm even feeling better/might be over the worse of whatever it's going to do to me - here's hoping.
