Normally, working on a book is an escape for me. Typically, when I’m in the middle of a writing project my wife is always telling me that I’m in “book mode.” And she’s right. Day dreaming about my characters is how I subconsciously work out plot holes, find more complex meanings in a passage or even write a vivid first draft of a scene.
When in book mode, I’ll constantly email or text myself ideas. I’ll jot notes down in my phone. I’ll make a quick audio recording. Anything to get an idea down before it drifts across the oasis that is my semi-conscious mind.
For a year and a half, I’ve found it nearly impossible to remain in book mode. Oh, I still have thoughts. I still email myself. And I still make my notes. But the actual writing that turns these scraps into storylines has become hard to maintain.
For the record, I have never believed in writer’s block. I still don’t: I know from experience that if I sit down at my computer the words will eventually come. They may start haltingly. They may not be great. But they do appear. It’s a matter of letting your mind wander back into the magical make-believe world I’m conjuring out of nowhere. The problem I’m experiencing isn’t writer’s block. I’m still excited bunny sophomore novel. It’s something deeper.
Ever since the pandemic upended the real world, I’ve struggled to control my imaginary world. You’d think it’d be easier. With so much uncertainty and chaos in our everyday lives, you might think I would find myself sinking deeper and deeper into my fictional story as a way to cope, or as an escape mechanism. Heck, I thought that would happen too.
When my entire company was sent home a year ago in March, I was actually excited. Here was my chance to spend more time on my book. Lunch hours and commutes would now be furtive writing time along with my typical late-night sessions. Instead, work on my novel stopped completely for months. Then, in December, when I realized I’d wasted two-thirds of a year, I forced myself back into the writing seat. That worked for awhile. In fact, as vaccinations became more widely available and the pandemic seemed to wane, I found myself writing more and more.
And then the third wave came. And the fourth. The Delta and Lambda variants began to plunge us back into the isolation we were on the precipice of leaving behind. Add to that the fact that suddenly, disparate maintaining distancing and wearing masks, our household began to find itself infested with various sicknesses. Not Covid-19, thankfully. But stomach ailments, colds and even RSV.
I’m currently sitting here with a pounding head and clogged sinuses. I can’t breathe through my nose. I have no energy. And my manuscript is gathering figurative dust. I had hoped (and part of me still does) that I would be able to publish this book this fall.
Here’s what I’ve decided to do. I’m not going to beat myself up. But neither am I going to give up. I will finish this book. It will be better than my first. And I will publish it when it is ready. That doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on my original deadline, but it does mean that I won’t be adding to my anxiety by worrying about my current lethargic weekly word counts. There are bigger things happening in the world, and at my house, right now. So I’ll write when I can. Continue to put one foot in front of the other. And as long as I’m moving forward, I’m making progress.
