What I Learned From Quarantine Life Changed Me Forever by Mariana Serio (@mstranslations)

I’ll always remember the look of terror in everyone else’s eyes when they heard they’d be under strict lockdown. Working from home while dealing with the kids? Was that a sick joke or something?

My family and friends were all freaking out. But I’m an introverted translator. “The joke’s on you, Coronavirus. I can handle this,” I told myself. And I honestly thought nothing would change.

When I saw this meme in March, I felt it was almost too relatable.

Self-isolation

Truth be told, I’ve always enjoyed being alone. Growing up, my mom thought there was something wrong with me. But I simply liked playing with my toys all by myself and minding my own business.

She thought I needed to socialize more, so I took Theatre, Art, and Music lessons with other kids. None of that helped. After that, I became a Boy Scout (there were both boys and girls). I hated it. Everything and everyone bored me to death until I discovered my passion: the English language. 

I became obsessed. I only listened to music in English, read texts in English, and watched every show/movie I could find in English. I only had an old TV, so I had to cover the subtitles with black tights to improve my listening skills. Never take Netflix for granted, kids!

Quarantine life

Fast forward to this date, and I’ve worked from home as a translator/copywriter for the last seven years, after my first (and last) in-house translator job. I share an office with my husband, but I rarely go there. The reason? I love peace and quiet, and I still enjoy being alone.

But after losing my uncle to cancer without being able to say goodbye, all I wanted was to spend as much time with my family as possible. And I couldn’t even do that! I had A LOT of work coming my way as a subcontractor. But I can’t even name the huge companies from the IT sector I work for due to NDAs. It sucks.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the agency work, and I know other translators would kill to have these clients. But the long hours, the three hundred glossaries that contradict each other, the last-minute changes, the race to the bottom when it comes to rates PLUS being a mom of 3…it was getting overwhelming.

Time for a change

I suddenly realized that, because I was a shy introvert, I’d missed many opportunities to have more and better clients. I know every marketing strategy in the book, but I was using them for the benefit of everyone else but me.

So I decided to face my fear of networking to connect with my dream clients. They’re tech executives who need help writing or translating web content, blog posts, newsletters, and social media content (or localizing other multimedia products).

But there was one small limitation: my trip to the US and the conferences I was planning to attend were canceled. How was I going to meet new people?

The lowest cost (yet highest ROI) trick I've learned during this quarantine life

“In times of crisis, some people cry while others sell tissues.” So instead of focusing on the limitations imposed by the lockdown, I leveraged the other tools available for networking: virtual meetings and social media.

I started sharing useful tips on LinkedIn, sending personalized invitations, engaging with people’s posts, and sending them messages, which soon became video calls.

By providing value and genuinely connecting with people, I gained three new direct clients in only one month. I didn’t think I’d have the time for this, but it turns out I only had to invest a couple of hours a day. Thanks to my direct-client work, I can work less while making the same amount of money (or even more).

Y colorín colorado, este cuento se ha acabado (Snip, snap, snout, this tale's told out)

Quarantine life hasn’t been as easy as I thought it would be. But, at least, I learned how to make the most out of a difficult situation—a superpower I didn’t even know I had.

I used to believe I had to work all day to be successful as a middle-class woman from Argentina. That’s why, for nine years, I’ve written and translated content for huge brands, but only as a subcontractor. I was too scared to put myself out there because it made me uncomfortable as the shy and introverted person I am.

But quarantine life has taught me that time is too precious to be wasting it. Now, every minute I spend with my family or working for my dream clients is a minute worth living.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Mariana Serio on Twitter @mstranslations.

What I've Learned From My Quarantine Life by M. Dalto (@MDalto421)

The most ironic part of writing a blog post about writing during quarantine is that these words will be the most I’ve written in succession since our State of Emergency went into effect March 16, 2020.

But when Gillian asked me to contribute, who was I to say no to the opportunity to attempt to put my thoughts and feelings about how this pandemic has affected me not only emotionally but professionally. It was a blog post I had considered writing for myself when this was all said and done anyway, but since we don’t see an end in sight anytime soon and this opportunity arose, I suppose now is as good a time as any to lay it all out.

So here’s my real talk: I can’t write anymore.

OK, so that sounds a little dramatic. Let’s just say that since March, I have not been able to find the motivation to write anything new for myself. At all.

It’s not that I don’t have anything new to work on. Far from it. Between fantasy thieves, elemental werefoxes, and a choose-your-own-adventure murder mystery, I have plenty of options to choose from should the need arise.

But it hasn’t. It isn’t. And for the first time, I’m uncertain what I can do about it.

So while other authors are using this opportunity to reflect on what they’ve been able to do while under quarantine, I’m going to use this as an exercise into why I have not been able to do anything. And perhaps, by the end of this, together we can explore any and all available options to get ourselves back into the writing mindset.

Why We Can’t Write

Even when there’s not a pandemic happening around us, writer’s block is real. It just feels exponentially worse when there are so many other situations where we find ourselves doing anything but focusing that energy on the creative. These are just a few.

• Physical factors - The virus is no joke, and it’s changed how many of us live. We can’t go where we want without restrictions and planning, or perhaps not at all. Some of us may be high risk, some of us may not want to risk anything at all. The coffee shop you used to use as your getaway may have closed. The routine you used before you settled down may have been upended. I haven’t been able to get away to my local Panera, my standard escape whenever I needed a refresh. Anything right now can reverse what we considered normal, and it has an effect in so many ways. 

• Professional obligations - Some of us have been forced to work remotely, while others have been deemed essential. Unfortunately, some of us have stopped working altogether. All of these factors can drastically impact one’s ability to focus on something enjoyable. As for myself I’ve been deemed ‘essential’ since the beginning and have continued to go into my office every day, full time. In the beginning, we were encouraged to try to work from home as much as we could, but unfortunately, real estate in Massachusetts doesn’t exactly allow for that, especially when rates are dropping and people still want to buy houses in the midst of a pandemic.

• Personal influences - I’m a mom, and like most parents, we’ve had to reorganize our lives to accommodate remote learning virtual school from home. The end of the school year was a mess with a capital M, especially as a parent to a child with ADHD and extremely used to her schooling schedule. Trying to accommodate what we needed to do in her best interest on top of everything else was just one more stressor we didn’t expect when this all began.

• Emotional factors - Before the pandemic, I was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder. I have panic and anxiety attacks, especially in high-stress situations. During these times it’s nearly impossible for me to focus on anything else, let alone anything I enjoy. The pandemic has been the epitome of anxiety for all the factors I’ve mentioned above, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s become consuming: thinking about it, fearing it, worrying not only about myself, but more so for my loved ones and what the unknown future is going to bring.

• Circumstantial reasons - The frosting on the cake for me during this pandemic was the opportunities that I had when it started that slipped through my fingers as the time went on. So many events and talks and contracts have been canceled, postponed, and reverted since the beginning of my quarantine and with everyone piling on top of the other, something’s bound to break underneath it all. Those opportunities were my main focus on writing for myself. 

How We Can Start Writing

Pandemic or otherwise, there was always the possibility of writer’s block. We’ve all been there, and we know it’s more or less a temporary setback that often resolves itself. But what if you’re like me, where external factors are exponentially worse and that block just won’t seem to break?

• A new project - Nothing makes the mind work better than something new. A fresh start, a clean slate. Whether you outline or are a pantser like me, a new story may be one of the most exciting endeavors when trying to find your footing to begin writing again. Have an idea for a new story you’ve been dying to begin or looking to find an excuse to write something in a genre you’ve never touched before? These little things could be all you need to get the gears turning. I thought this was going to be my saving grace, beginning something new that I was looking forward to working on for some time. Unfortunately, it was also the first time I realized that something was wrong where being able to write was concerned. I had an idea, I had a deadline and for a while, I had the drive to make it happen…but the closer that deadline drew, the slower the words appeared, and before I realized it I found myself in a panic to get the story written. For the first time in a long while, I folded on a deadline.  

• A new setup - My best writing always happened when I had two computers next to one another on my desk—my desktop computer which I generally used for gaming and the internet, while my laptop was set up next to me, current project loaded up should the motivation hit while I'm mid-game in Hearthstone or waiting to queue for a dungeon in World of Warcraft. A couple of years ago, they both were replaced by a pretty impressive gaming laptop and things were fine for a while. Then the laptop stopped working like it should (I mean, who can write with a broken Enter button?) and the glamour started to fade when I had to hook up an ancillary keyboard just to be able to write. Enter the pandemic and a desperate need to return to the creative life I once knew, so I tried to revert my space back to what I knew worked. Or, at least I tried. My husband made the valiant effort to watch as many YouTube videos and read as many Reddit threads as he could about fixing the laptop, and it worked for about 24 hours. In that time I had found another monitor and set up my desk the way it used to be and I was excited. And then the Enter key stopped working again...

• A new routine - Maybe with everything else going on, trying to focus on a novel isn’t the best thing for you. Novels can be daunting, even when there’s not a pandemic happening. Instead of looking at the big picture, it might help best to break it down a bit. Perhaps focus on a short story with less commitment than a full-length book. Or if you insist on needing to focus on a novel, perhaps a certain word count goal per day and to help you focus and move forward. Self-imposed deadlines help you work under a different kind of pressure. Or maybe refocus on something else like blogging (*cough cough*) to attempt to get those fingers typing again. 

• Change of pace - Sometimes all you need is a change of pace. Are you generally a nighttime writer? Try waking up in the morning to get some words in. Do you prefer to raise your word count before the day begins? Maybe it’s time to increase the caffeine and become a night owl for a time. A small change could be all it takes, and you just need to take it one day at a time because this magic doesn’t happen overnight.  

And If We Still Can’t Write

What if nothing else works? What if the words won’t come and we feel like writing is more of an obligation than an enjoyable pastime? Have I personally tried the advice I’ve written so far? I absolutely have. And yet, here I am…trying harder to write a blog post than I have in the last five months I’ve had to work on anything else I’ve wanted. And it’s hard. It’s really really hard. But I’m doing it. So something must have worked, right? Well, maybe…or maybe it was a lot of somethings. Or no somethings at all...

• Don’t write - I know this sounds counterproductive and the source of all the issues I’ve had to begin with but hear me out on this one. For me, one of the hardest things to do is write when I’m trying to force myself to do it, especially when writer’s block is strongly in place. So my words of advice whenever writer’s block strikes is to stop writing for however long you need (or in this case, however long I’ve been in quarantine) and try focusing on other activities.

• Read - I’m not going to jump up and say this has been the easiest thing for me to do either, but I will say I have been finding myself getting less screen time and opting to pick up a book instead (yes, I do prefer hardcovers and paperbacks over eBooks still). That detachment from electronics definitely helps me regroup when I feel fried whether it’s from social media or the news or thinking about writing when I know I won’t be able to. Curling up on the couch or in bed with a book definitely helps me recharge the imagination, which is a huge factor in being able to write, at least for me.

• Play games - Whether you’re a tabletop gamer or into video games, I always found gaming a pleasant distraction from the pressures of writing. As a fantasy author, the opportunity to escape into alternate realms has always been appealing, whether it’s through writing, reading, or playing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. 

• Safely explore the outside world - Especially in the summertime, we strive to be outside while the weather remains nice enough for us to do so. As phases come into place and numbers drop, some areas are safely and cautiously reopening to the public once again. Even so, I beg each and every one of you to please be careful and take care of yourself should you choose to follow this advice. I’ll be the first to admit that I will not eat inside a restaurant (though we have participated in outdoor dining) and I’ve only just recently ventured to our mall for necessities. Even so, these were still adventures that took me away from the house. One of the best quarantine purchases I made was a hammock for our backyard. Whether it’s just getting some fresh air outside while my daughter plays, or unwinding after a long day of work, or swinging in the breeze with my book, being (safely) outside does help me tremendously.

• Help others - If you can’t seem to help yourself out of the writing block, maybe you can find someone else who could use that extra little assistance. Instead of writing, perhaps partake in beta-reading or swapping with a critique partner. If you’ve ever been interested in editing, it might be an ideal time to look into that editorial certificate. Offer to proofread for your writer friends who need that extra set of eyes on their final draft before beginning to query. Or you could be absolutely ridiculous like me and begin an independent publishing house just as the pandemic began. But whatever you choose, be a cheerleader. Encourage those who may be able to do what you cannot, but stay positive—you’ll get back there one day. 

As each day goes on, it does get a little better, but I know this is our new normal and not where we’re used to being. This blog post was the first time I tried to write something new since the beginning of the pandemic, and 2,230 words later, I’ll be the first to admit it was a struggle, but it’s also been therapeutic. I think part of healing and getting beyond that which holds us back is talking about it—or in this case, writing about it. So thank you, Gillian, for this opportunity and I hope that those of you reading this know that you’re not alone. It’s ok to not be ok, and we’re all going to get through this together.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow M. Dalto on Twitter @MDalto421.

Rediscovering Self Worth by Brenton Barnes (@brentonsquared)

The beginning of my quarantine was sudden. It started in the middle of March and nearly every day since has felt exactly the same. My day planners, to-do lists, photographs on my phone, and hours logged on Animal Crossing say otherwise, but as a people, we have collectively existed in a state of unknowing. With no idea when this pandemic will end, we’ve reached the point where the past five months feel more like an abridged year with compressed and confusing experiences throughout.

Somewhere in that time, something occurred that felt a long time coming: I became uncertain of my value and self-worth.

* * *

Like so many others, I’ve had the unenviable position of becoming unemployed during this pandemic, but not due to it. I cannot “go back to work” since the company that I worked for doesn’t exist anymore. In the “Before Times,” I would have written it off as a simple set back with mixed emotions. People such as myself had reasons to be cheerful in the past: the world was open and full of possibilities!

Previously, most of us never had trouble finding work and our time spent on unemployment was typically brief. Unfortunately due to the pandemic, with many businesses closed or laying off employees, people are now finding themselves needing to rely on unemployment insurance longer than they expected or wanted to.

My daily routine for the first few months involved sifting through listing after listing on job boards, selecting the right resume, writing the right cover letter, applying for what best suited me, and…generally not receiving a response. If I got lucky, I received a rejection letter, but even that wasn’t common.

I felt a palpable sense of existential dread that was difficult to shake, even when I exercised, went on walks, reconnected with friends and acquaintances, had fun and tried to rediscover my passions. During many nights it nipped at my heels and followed me, waiting, and always finding the best time to strike: like when I tried to fall asleep.

Unable to turn my brain off, I was forced to face a barrage of questions:

“Who are you?”, “What are you doing?”, “Weren’t you supposed to be something else?”

If I dreamt, sometimes I would have vivid dreams about working at my old job: unsatisfied but being offered a wage and bonus to keep life affordable, health benefits, a 401K, and paid time off. A millennial wet dream if there ever was one. When I woke up, the questions would follow and one morning I asked back:

“Who am I? What am I worth? Do I even have any value in myself anymore?”

* * *

The answer to my questions came shortly thereafter: I had fallen into a trap of my own making. My value was being defined by productivity and what I was doing for money. In the past few years, I’ve experienced life events that have changed my lifestyle and added their own anxieties. By allowing those anxieties to take the forefront, I tried to permanently solve my problems by chasing money and felt unable to focus on passions that made me feel fulfilled.

After talking with some fellow graduates of the class of 2010, who are, arguably still feeling the pain of the 2008 recession, I found out that others had experienced a similar realization. They had come to misunderstand who they were and had defined themselves not by their actions, thoughts, or passions, but by their jobs.

This realization was a tough pill to swallow and was just as upsetting as it is enlightening. However, I firmly believe that when something breaks, it opens up the opportunity to replace it with something that does work and will ultimately benefit you.

* * *

My realization immediately triggered a memory. It was of an exercise I had read about on the now irrelevant humor/satire website Cracked.com.

The basic premise was that you were asked to think about what tasks you did after work and write it down as a list. Next, you were asked to think about the person you wanted to be or what you wanted to achieve in your life. Then, you’d review the list of actions to see if they reflected what you claimed you wanted, and then you would quickly realize that your list of activities is what actually defines you.

If I were to use this exercise against myself based on my pre-COVID-19 life, I could list the following as after-work activities:

• Listen to podcasts while sitting in a line of traffic on the highway.

• Spend time with my wife and cats.

• Eat dinner.

• Make a light attempt at being creative (sometimes).

• Do something to entertain myself before going to sleep.

Conversely, the list of what I wanted to be included a writer and an illustrator. Quite the opposite illustration…don’t you think? Predictable puns aside, a creative life is a far-reaching endeavor and I started to think about it long before the pandemic.

When I was younger, I had the same goals and still paid my bills by working unsatisfying jobs. However, unlike in recent life, when I arrived home I was focused on honing a worthwhile skill by practicing and creating new works, making moves, or creating opportunities to further a creative career. Essentially, I was experiencing the joy of creation and deriving value from that.

As such, I re-evaluated my current values against what I wanted them to be and thought about what my younger self would have to say. While I can never go back and be my younger self, I can at the very least look at my past actions, learn from them, and move forward with my current wisdom and skills. For instance, I now have a better concept of time management and a work-smart, not-hard mindset!

I’ve also been actively starting to consider why I choose to do the things that I do. Instead of looking at my decisions as a chance to grow and develop, they’re often transactional and sometimes feel one-sided.

One thing is for sure, whether it’s seeking money from a job or craving “attention” for your efforts (especially on social media), treating any decision like it’s a transaction will make you seem disingenuous and that can take a toll on your psyche. We’ve been warned time and time again that no one should ever do anything “just for the money,” and while there isn’t anything wrong with making money, we should always have a better reason behind our decisions.

On that same note, money isn’t the most valuable currency. Money is helpful and it makes life easier, but it is a fickle variable and is never constant. Time, though finite, is constant and we should always value how we spend our time. Time well spent offers a better self-worth ROI than a salary or hourly wage ever could.

* * *

While it’s good to have come to this realization, I need to recognize that the world is still in a time of extreme upheaval. To try and make a complete one-eighty and become the productive person that I want to be during this time is the equivalent of trying to get my life back on track over the course of a single Sunday. However, I can, at the very least pick and choose my battles, consider the value of my actions and take steps towards valuing myself and having something real to offer.

If I don’t, my alternative is an anti-comedy sketch that I used to show my co-workers to help them feel better: the story of landscape company CEO Eric Haden who had material wealth, but hated his life. He had no significant other, his diet and general health were bad, and he took his anger out on his employees and his office environment. A perfect example of what happens when you don’t value yourself and how that can trap you.

The bottom line is this—that example is no way for anyone to live their life…and certainly not the way I want to live mine.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Brenton Barnes on Twitter @brentonsquared.

A Desk With Calke Green Legs by Jamie Thomas (@thatjamiethomas)

I used to write in coffee shops. I used to write in classrooms. I used to write in parks, in libraries, at wineries, and, once, on a bus. 

Now, I write at a small desk in my bedroom. 

The previous owner of the unremarkable mid-century modern house we’ve lived in for nearly two years left it behind when he moved, and while I can forgive one for assuming this particular desk is, therefore, rubbish, it is no such thing. In the five months, I have been in lockdown, it has become my whole world. 

It was once a school desk, meant for two students, side by side. It is perhaps three feet long and boasts two cubbies, separated; perfect for textbooks, with a slight indentation for a pencil or two. The legs are metal, and although half of the paint has been rubbed off, a casualty of years of carelessly braced feet, what is left is the beautiful antique green known as calke, a deep sage made famous by Farrow and Ball that graced the breakfast room of the famous Darbyshire abbey. The antique wooden chair I sit in is painted the same color and is uncomfortable, but aesthetically pleasing, which counts for little when I am seated and everything when I enter my bedroom and see it standing cheerfully, waiting. 

The top is pale wood Formica and chipped, but hardly consequential because it is rarely visible. 

There are two computers, one stationary, one not; the former I use to listen to music though it is actually meant to serve as the hub of our household network, the consequence of a husband who works in tech. The latter is my laptop. There are speakers, routers, and disk drives. There is even a mouse, rarely used. These are the ordinary things, and they are not beautiful; a part of me resents their presence, but I have grown begrudgingly used to them as the months have skulked by because as I have adopted this desk, a necessity as my world has narrowed, I have filled it with enough curiosities that I hardly notice the monotonous green lights and sharp, silver lines. 

There are beeswax candles, pillars not yet burned, and the stubs of sheets of wax I rolled myself, slightly lopsided. There are animal bones, glass phials of moth wings, and a cup of feathers. There are stones that have names I’ve forgotten; there is a crystal door knob set in green cast iron, and a bundle of black sage I’ve yet to burn. I do not believe in its ability to cleanse or produce vivid dreams and hallucinations, but its sharp, spicy smell is pleasant, and sometimes I find myself reaching for it when a plot thread has me particularly flummoxed. There is a stack of books, some I’ve read recently, others yet to be read, and I thumb through them absently when my fingers grow tired of typing and itch for the feel of paper between them. One of the books is my own, and although I use it primarily as a reference, sometimes I shuffle through the pages and stop to read a paragraph or two. It reminds me of the world before.   

There are notebooks, of course, but unlike my fellow wordsmiths who freely admit to collecting them despite never intending to mar their perfectly pristine pages, mine are full of names and questions and illegible scrawling that may or may not be important plot points and are probably how tousled one character’s hair looks after another has run their hands through it. Tacked on a corkboard is my first book contract, surrounded by botanical ephemera; beside it, pages from a vintage French book of flowers: Lis blanc, Crassule, Hortensia, Pied d’alouette. I grow some of them in my garden. 

At night, my writing desk is lit by fairy lights and tiny flames, and this is my favorite time of all. 

No one inhabits this world but me, and it is mine, lovingly curated during a time when getting out of bed is difficult, let alone creating, sharpening aesthetics and images and half-remembered dreams into tangible plots and characters and dialogue. I am myself when I sit in the rickety wooden chair, even if my back bears the brunt of the horrid posture it invites if I stay too long, and although I do not write as quickly, now, as unreservedly, as joyfully as I did when the world was different, the words themselves are not less; they are hard-won, and, sometimes they are even better. 

For me and so many others, lockdown has threatened my identity in ways I could never have imagined. Who am I when I am not standing at the head of a classroom? Who am I without the company and counsel of my friends? Who am I when I am with my husband and daughter far more than I’ve ever been in the last ten years? The answer is, of course, still me, but the effort of remembering, of reminding myself, is exhausting, and I am so very tired of being exhausted. 

Despair has come easy, far easier than I would have thought, for I always imagined myself resilient, owed far more to the cynic in me than the optimist. I am used to difficulty, and I treat my hardships irreverently, with a sharp tongue and a whiff of martyrdom because I am used to them by now and know that wailing and hair-pulling are pointless, if cathartic. The difficulty is still there, waiting, at the end of it. Oh, good, it says pleasantly as I blink with red-rimmed eyes and a head full of cotton. You’re back. Now, where were we?

I still have such days because I am, after all, only human, and given to flares of the dramatic. But I have also found that the best days I have spent in lockdown have been those in which I have, intentionally and with purpose, brought joy in my world, however small it has become: seeds planted with my daughter that have grown into carrots she pulls and eats on lazy, sweltering afternoons; a bottle of my favorite wine shared with my husband; a lazy nap taken with my equally lazy cat; an evening spent in front of the fire pit in the backyard, the smoke curling into the twilight sky from a stick I have held in the flames until its tip is smoldering. 

And, of course, my writing desk with its legs of calke green and merry collection of strange, beautiful things that litter every surface. 

While I wait for the world outside to heal, I have created my own within, and every texture and color and scent is mine, a reminder of who I am, even on those days when I struggle to reconcile the person this tragedy would have me be, and the one I wish to remain. When, at last, this is all over, for one day it will be over, the world will not be the same as it was when I left it, nor will I be, but it will not have been cynicism that will have shaped me but joy found in the most inconsequential: beeswax candles; moth wings; the pages of a book. 

And a desk with calke green legs left by a man who will never know how much it has meant to me these past few months to have a place that I have made mine, where I have known joy, and myself. 

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Jamie Thomas on Twitter @thatjamiethomas.

One Thing by E. J. Dawson (@ejdawsonauthor)

If I learned anything from COVID it was worrying about everything leads to getting a whole lot of nothing done.

I spent four months unemployed which I judiciously used to write or do writing related things. But I wont lie and say there wasn’t a couple of weeks were I did nothing.

We all had them, trapped in our homes, fear and worry chasing our thoughts into procrastination and apathy. Even the introverts were itching to get out.

I spent a lot of time criticizing myself for not doing enough. 

Last year I wrote ten novels in the space of a year while working full time.

I had four months off and wrote less than hundred thousand words. That might sound like a lot, but not to me. And they were all garbage. 

I went ahead with the release of my book back in April which was supposed to be during my first paid gig as a speaking author. It would have been a great launch but there were no funds to be had for hard copies or advertising thanks to my unemployment, and then the gig was cancelled.

I released anyway but it was under severe constraints and without nearly as much joy or celebration as the first book I’d released three years ago. I had to let go of my emotional attachment to the wondrous thrill of having a book out there because of the crippling anxiety I couldn’t spend anything on promoting it. When I started trawling through blogs looking for reviewers I’d had several prestigious ones lined up and they just couldn’t read it. Why? COVID.

It sucked the time, emotion, and life out of everything and is STILL doing it!

But we are our own worst critics, aren’t we? And I won’t criticize you for feeling like you might have failed for doing nothing. Even as I sit here and criticize myself.

After a while what I found was the small goals were what really mattered most. Rather than focus on the quality or quantity of what I was doing – I just focused on getting one thing done a day. One tedious task a week.

I made a routine of cleaning the house and having stuff done by the weekend so on the weekends I could relax, and during the week I was at ‘work’.

I didn’t make my writing career more demanding than it had to be. I worked progressively on editing those scripts from last year. On getting ahead of schedule so when I went back to work I would already have a lot of my writerly work done. 

What was most rewarding was the niggly tasks though. The ones we always put off on weekends because there isn’t enough time.

I hate sewing and I suck at it but most of our blankets have been mended. Finally put those pictures in their frames. Dusted all the architraves. Buffed marks out of the walls. Fixed the broken blinds in the dressing room. Got rid of all the spiderwebs out the front of the house.

I rearranged the bookcase a little. I read older books I hadn’t in years. I reorganized my desk space. Updated my goal and work progress on my wall. I read books on writing, working to improve my craft. I updated my website to something I much preferred. 

All time consuming and potentially irritating but nevertheless important. And it didn’t matter if I wasted the rest of the day or week or whatever time frame I’d given myself. If I got that ONE thing done then the time I spent playing games, staring out the window, or scrolling social media didn’t feel misspent. It was about my mental health and what I needed to do to get through those moments.

Now I’m back at work I don’t feel like I wasted that time as much as I could have, and with all the things I did get done my house is a nicer space to work from home.

So if you find yourself confined and restrained; make yourself achievable daily and weekly goals. Do the things about your home, and with your hobbies and life that you’ve always wanted to do and never “had time.”

Just that one thing. A day. A week. A month. Then go back to the things that make you feel safe, secure and comforted. 

All those One Things do is make the space you’re in all the more safer, cleaner, and very much your own. 

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow E. J. Dawson on Twitter @ejdawsonauthor. 

Embracing the Drift by Frank L Tybush V (@FLTV_Writes)

A quick glance at my bookshelf reveals all secrets. What secrets might these be? That I have an insatiable interest in the history of exploration and human endurance. Books about Everest, Arctic expeditions, archeological searches in harsh environments… they are my jam. I obsessively read survivors’ tales and pieced-together accounts of doomed journeys. I cannot get enough of what humans will do, because they can.

One fascinating aspect that pops up often is explorers coming adrift. And while, yes, becoming adrift physically (meaning lost) happens often, what I’m referring to is when the mind goes adrift. When there is a disconnect with reality. It often happens on long journeys with few markers to tether oneself. This can cause some people to go completely mad. Others fight through it by finding little ways to remind themselves of the world beyond their ship/tent/small group.

How does this relate to what I learned throughout this pandemic?

Other than short trips out (more in recent days, but still very regulated and careful), I have lived, worked, existed entirely in my house since March. I, thankfully, still have a job. My commute is now a walk up a flight of stairs. My breakroom is my kitchen. My once 10-minute jaunts through the streets surrounding my work’s office building have become me doing dishes or little chores.

Pretty much every day is exactly the same.

And I became adrift.

Sure, I’m a hermit by nature, but with work transitioned from a shared office to my lonely second-floor, I lost my tether. Zoom meetings and Slack conversations did little to help. I knew people existed, but I didn’t know where I existed.

I live in New York (upstate, not the city). We were hit pretty hard. In the early days, I obsessed over the news. I worried constantly. I have an autoimmune disease. Every time I had to get groceries, I fretted that I would catch the virus. I tried to limit leaving my house as much as possible. Because of this monotony, other than small reminders through work, I rarely knew what day it was. A Monday felt like a Friday, and a Friday felt like a Monday. Life became an endless cycle of worry, confusion, anger, and sadness.

I felt like I was going crazy. I couldn’t focus on work. And writing? Well, that gif of Kristin Bell laughing and then crying is the perfect representation. Thankfully, I had a finished novel to query, but all attempts to put pen to paper (or in my world, fingers to keyboard) felt hollow. I’d stare at the screen for a long while before just switching over to Twitter.

I wrote nothing.

I only had reams and reams of blank (digital) paper to show for the time I put into writing.

Then I made a decision… to both let go and embrace.

I first let go of the guilt I felt over my anxiety. The world is effed up right now, and it’s okay to have anxiety. Just admitting that helped a lot. At least I stopped worrying about worrying.

Next came the unhealthy news obsession. Sure, I still keep abreast of the news, but I stopped attempting to follow minute-to-minute updates. I let go. Finding out the latest scoop wouldn’t help the immediate situation. It wouldn’t ensure safety while shopping for my comfort foods (french fries and ice cream). I decided it can wait, and limited the time I spent scrolling and hoping for hope. And now, if I feel overwhelmed with the news coming out, I take a step back and not let myself drift into a downward spiral of “wtf’s.” (Instead, I go on a downward spiral of cute animal videos… much healthier, in my opinion.)

And most of all, I embraced being mentally adrift.

I embraced the realization that it is difficult to focus and stopped beating myself up over that fact. I couldn’t expect that I would have the same process that I once had. I accepted that it’s okay to drift.*

I no longer feel bad that I may start reading four different books before falling on one that I actually finish. Last year, I would probably have sludged through and tried to finish the book before heading to the next. Now, I’d rather spend my time enjoying a book, instead of stressing over finishing one I didn’t immediately connect with.

I’ve adopted the same mentality with my writing.

I have started two different books during the pandemic that I have abandoned. In the past, I would feel awful about giving up after a chapter or two, but times have changed. I celebrated the fact that I wrote but accepted that it wasn’t time for those stories. Allowing myself to drift freed me from anxiety.

Nowadays, I spend a lot of time workshopping and worldbuilding in my head before even attempting to write. Allowing myself to not feel like a failure for imagining instead of typing has helped to shift my mental state to a more positive one. Relieving the pressure enables me to feel more creative and less exhausted.

Yes, this all means that I have a lot of false starts, but the acceptance of the drift has allowed creativity to return. And this extends beyond just writing. For the first time, in a very long time, I’ve acquired new materials to return to creating sculptures.

Times have changed. In reality, they probably won’t ever go completely back to how they were before the pandemic. I’m trying to evolve and find my new normal. How long will it take to find this? I have no idea.

But in the meantime, I’m quite alright with the drift.

*I recently started listening to a band named “Creeper,” and I find myself singing one of their lyrics repeatedly to myself. “When your friends sing ‘Born to Run,’ baby, resist, ‘cause we were ‘Born to Drift.’” It’s starting to be my current mantra of acceptance in this day and age.

If you enjoyed this piece, please follow Frank L Tybush V on Twitter @FLTV_Writes.

2020 Writer Roster: #GBWritesWithOthers

For the first time ever, I am going to publish the roster of #GBWritesWithOthers writers via its own post! This year, our theme (also a first…there has never been a theme before!) is “What I Learned from #QuarantineLife.” I believe there is a lot to be gained from others during this unprecedented year, so this is my effort to collect and share the knowledge, build our community, and foster cerebral bonds through the art of expression.

So here we go…by day:

September 1 Frank L Tybush V @FLTV_Writes

September 2 Erin Robinson @flossybunny

September 3 Emma Vale @EmmaValeWrites

September 4 ASH @ASHnovelist

September 5 Jared A. Conti @OracularBeard

September 6 James Murphy @mutabilisblog

September 7 U.L. Harper @ulharper

September 8 Renée Gendron @ReneeGendron

September 9 Alexa Rose @RoseRhigo

September 10 A.P. Miller @Millerverse

September 11 E. J. Dawson @ejdawsonauthor

September 12 Winter Krane @WinterKrane

September 13 Jamie Thomas @thatjamiethomas

September 14 Brenton Barnes @brentonsquared

September 15 Aubrey Medusa @AubreyMedusa

September 16 M. Hallrie (too cool for Twitter)

September 17 Erica Robyn @ericarobyn

September 18 Christopher Santoro @santorodesign1

September 19 Sherrie Gonzalez @sherrieberrie

September 20 M. Dalto @MDalto421

September 21 Rosemary Poppe @RosemaryPoppe

September 22 J.R.H. Lawless @SpaceLawyerSF

September 23 Cat Verlicco @growlette5

September 24 Sarah McGuinness (also too cool for Twitter)

September 25 T.M. Montgomery @TMMontgomery3

September 26 Mariana Serio @mstranslations

September 27 Michelle Peterson

September 28 Villimey Sigurbjörns @VillimeyS

September 29 Bethany Boggs @dreamgirlBA

September 30 Myself. Gillian F. Barnes @geezfresh

I am very excited about this group. Some of them I know quite well and some are complete strangers. Some don’t even bill themselves as writers (though many are involved in creative industries and the arts). I appreciate each and every one of them and hope you will support them this coming September.