The year 2020 left many artists struggling to create. For me, it was a time of intense depression and anxiety. Today I’m over at The Writing Cooperative talking about Writing Myself Back Into the Light during the darkest days of 2020. So if you’re struggling to create, can’t come up with the motivation to write, can’t find your flow, or just need a creativity booster as we get into the swing of a new year, check this out. I hope you like it!
The year 2020 found lots of different ways to crush my soul and with it, my creativity. A particularly dark winter meant I was still singing the Seasonal Affective Disorder blues when COVID-19 showed up in Washington State. Then everything shut down and my morning ritual of sipping tea and writing words in a quiet house disappeared. Suddenly there were three extra people at home all day long. Noisy, hungry, talkative people. Even with my office door shut and the fan churning out white noise, their energy threw me off my creative game.
Struggling to create
I was primed for a creative crisis already, to be honest. A beloved writing project didn’t get picked up over this past winter — the culmination of a couple of years of disappointment — just as my writing partner got the book deal of a lifetime (which I continue to celebrate with my whole heart). So many conflicting emotions swirled in my brain as we headed into spring and one message kept coming up for me: Wouldn’t I be happier if I just quit writing?
I run a thriving book coaching business. My husband and I spend our free time guiding our two amazing teenagers toward adulthood. And my anxiety is such that the constant stream of rejection that’s part of the writing life not only stings but can send me spiraling into depression. I wasn’t sure I needed that in my life, especially in a year of pandemics and human rights violations that brought tears to my eyes nearly every day. For the first time in nearly twenty years of writing — and against every piece of writing advice I’ve ever given — I considered quitting rather than struggling to create.
Over the next few weeks, I talked to my therapist, my friends, my husband. Of course, they all supported me as I struggled. I stopped writing for nearly two months this spring. Instead, I planted my garden, started a Victory Garden 2020 group on Facebook, and focused on my coaching clients. I put aside the dream. And I slept peacefully through each night for what felt like the first time in ages.
The itch to create
As spring led into summer, the sun came back to the Pacific Northwest. It would be a lie to say I didn’t enjoy the lightness of not having a word count goal to hit or a story to submit as I dug in the dirt, as I spent my time on other things. But it didn’t last. The sleep renewed me. My broken heart began to heal. By midsummer, I was feeling the itch to create.
But I knew it would have to be a new story. Revising something I’d already written felt too encumbered with baggage and disappointment. I started plotting a new novel. This story was light and fun and full of so many of my loves — nerdy science and garden lore, family mysteries and multi-generational bonds — but once I got through the outline, I struggled to write it. The voice just wasn’t there.
Then I got a note that changed everything… (Read more on The Writing Cooperative.)
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