One of the things I’ve noticed lately is that amidst the pandemic I’ve started worrying a ton about very small things. Tiny intricacies of my business. Whether I should have used this or that word in an email. Whether I took too long to respond to a text. I have plenty of big things to […]
The Writing Life
Lean into the things that bring you meaning
At the risk of stating what is blindingly obvious, there is nothing fun about the time we’re living through. Even if you’re one of the very privileged among us who has avoided sickness, financial calamity, or worse… the pandemic has closed off many of our normal outlets for relief and mental breaks. The most fun […]
Is the pandemic upending the plot of your novel?
The world will never be the same after this and it’s going to affect fiction in unpredictable ways as well. Ben Winters wrote a recent article about how the pandemic upended the novel he was 80% finished, much of which takes place in the spring of 2020. And Lawrence Wright has a novel coming out […]
There will be a time after this one
It’s a ridiculously hard time to write. No one is feeling productive. Many people have been plunged into financial uncertainty and feel vulnerable to a virus that’s an invisible menace. Some people have even started wondering: what’s the point of writing? What kind of a world will even be left for me to publish a […]
How are you coping?
These are stressful times, particularly if you live in the epicenter of an outbreak. Many of us are under quarantines, mandatory or recommended, and the sense of dread can feel overwhelming. How are you doing? What are you doing to keep your head afloat? What do you need? I’m especially grateful for the writing community […]
What will you write during the pandemic?
You probably know Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as one of the greatest novels of all time, but did you know it was written during a pandemic? The eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815 caused the quaint-sounding “Year Without a Summer” in 1816, which in reality meant rampant crop failures, famine, and horrific cholera and […]