Beyond the Book: Not Too Well

“How has the ongoing pandemic affected your creativity?”

At the beginning of the pandemic, we mostly isolated ourselves and went out as little as possible. You’d think that with so much time on my hands I would have knocked out several books by now. The thing is, I found that too much leisure had a negative impact on my writing. Before the pandemic I had regular writing time set aside and would work during those hours. With nothing else to do I just drifted away from writing and became a reader more than a writer. Our Monday and Tuesday foxes talked about discovering so many new creative outlets, but I sure didn’t do that. I used to quilt, do some needlework, and enjoyed keeping my house fresh and current. I didn’t do any of that either. I just watched TV, read, cooked a little, and walked the dogs. 

Eventually, though, people began to go out more, and so did we. We started to follow a more normal routine. We were careful, but we didn’t isolate ourselves anymore. As our routine returned to normal I found that I had a lot more interest in writing. I finished a couple of WIPs and started to edit them. 

At that point I found that the publisher who had many of my books was closing the doors. It wasn’t that this was totally unexpected, but having so many of books out of publication at one time threw me. I stopped thinking about writing again. I think I’ve come to terms with it now, My interest in writing seems to be returning for which I’m very thankful. Writing has been a part of my life for a long time now, and I’d hate to lose it. Maybe with one more edit I’ll try to find a publisher for one of those WIPs, and if I do my pandemic slump will end.