Covid Brain or Writer’s Block?

There’s an insidious syndrome affecting creative people of all sorts: Covid Brain. In fact, this syndrome is so bad that it’s affecting everyone, not just creatives. People are forgetting what day it is, forgetting how to do their daily tasks, forgetting how to relate to others because they haven’t talked to another human being in person in months. (Grocery store baggers are becoming our new best friends.)

As writers, we are more used to this sort of malaise because we know it by another name: writer’s block. Writer’s block is the same problem, just more contained; it only affects our creative output. But now it’s worse, like everyone has writer’s block. Sharing this experience, however, does not make it any better.

The first question, of course, is how do you tell Covid Brain from writer’s block? Answer: Who cares? It’s the result, not the name, that’s important. And more critically, what do we do about it?

I recommend you just go with the flow. This will end, sometime. And we will adjust. I remember that in late 2016 and early 2017, many writers (those who tend toward liberalism) found it extremely difficult to write because of the election results. It wasn’t writer’s block, but it was just as bad. (Sound familiar?) With time and self-therapy, they began to work again.

Writing is like exercise. You need to do it regularly, but too much too soon can burn out the muscles you’re trying to develop. I’m trying to work a little more each day, after having been in a slump. It’s not as much as I’d like, but I’ll accept progress for what it is. This is a tough time, with many of us having been on semi- or full lockdown for over six months. Expecting to jump from first gear to fourth in one go is simply unrealistic.

And what if you’re not a writer? Well, if you’ve got time on your hands… Don’t let the size of a project scare you (first to fourth, remember?); try to break it down into manageable pieces. Even if nothing comes of your attempt, it’s something to do, and that’s the best way to beat Covid Brain: Find something to occupy your real brain.

And when you’re on your way, and you feel the clouds lifting, drop me a line and remind me what day it is.

#SFWApro

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Time to Be Serious

There’s this ridiculous idea that’s been going around for I-don’t-know-how-long, that unless you’re actually earning your living through your writing, you aren’t a serious writer. How many ways is this idea is completely moronic? Let me count them. Oh, wait, I can’t.

First of all, what defines “serious”? In my book, you’re a serious writer if: you treat your writing as a professional obligation, i.e., you do it to the best of your ability on the principle that the customer should get value for his money; you do it consistently, because it is an obligation to yourself to improve and produce; and you submit your stories, because publication is your ultimate aim. Where and how you submit is unimportant, so long as you intend for your work to be read by the public.

Second, there are so many factors that go into making a living as a writer that are beyond your control, it’s stupid to say that being unable to affect them bars your admission to the status of “serious.” To be a published writer requires talent, of course, and (in all but a few cases) persistence. But it also requires that you match your story to an editor who likes it enough to pay for it. There are, nowadays, dozens if not hundreds of paying markets for short fiction. (It was not always this way.) Even so, selling short fiction to a market that will afford you a living is, well, it’s impossible, since no short markets pay a living wage. But beyond that, the competition is incredible, and even if your story is the best the editor has seen that week, it still runs the risk of being: too similar to a story he bought yesterday/too long or short/featuring a heroine who reminds him of his ex/read right after the editor had a big lunch and he’s too sleepy to finish it.

Sure, there are other editors out there, but maybe this was the only market that publishes your kind of story and pays decent money. And even if you sold that story, you’d be a long way from a living wage. See how hard it is to “make a living”? And that’s only talking about short fiction.

If you really want to make a living writing fiction, you have to write novels. Which means you have to get past all of the barriers above, as well as everyone else in the publishing house who has a say in acquiring your book, and then all you have to do is hope that your publisher will put some money behind your book and persuade a mere hundred thousand or so people to buy it. Again, this has nothing to do with how good your book is.

And yet there are yahoos out there saying you aren’t serious? You spent three years writing that book! And what if you don’t ever get that far? What if you write ten novels in ten years and send them each to a dozen publishers and every one of them falls flat? What if you really do suck at this and no matter how hard you work and how many classes you take, you simply can’t write a publishable novel (even if you have some short story sales)? Does that mean you’re not serious?

Brother, you are more serious than the best-selling author who writes two books of a trilogy and never finishes the third. You are more serious than the author of the Great American Novel, who never writes another.

“Serious” is not about making a living, or even making money. “Serious” is not a result. “Serious” is an attitude.

And if you want to be a writer, then you seriously better have an attitude.

#SFWApro

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