It’s been a hell of a couple weeks, so I’m a little late on my post. I’m writing this as the impact of the coronavirus is settling in. Yesterday the president was on TV telling everyone to stay home and not go out unless you absolutely need to. Stores are short on some items, like toilet paper and detergents, but have plenty of others like eggs and seltzer water.
I went to the drugstore this morning to pick some ibuprofin and allergy medication. The parking lot was quite crowded but there was nobody in the drugstore – they were in the gun store next door.
Oh, and I haven’t had a job in six months. This is 2020, its motto: You Thought 2016 Was Bad… (thanks to Dave Barry)
This feels like a really roller coaster and all I can think is I want to get the hell off. I want to climb back into bed, wake up tomorrow morning and find out this has all been a bad dream. That, unfortunately, will not be happening.
For a lot of this I really haven’t felt much like writing. I think in a way I’m kind of shell shocked – right before the news broke about how potentially bad things are in the U.S. I started working on a new script. I got some good pages out, then hell broke loose, and then I didn’t feel like writing so I put it down.
I’ve been thinking of getting back to it. My wife managed to snag some library books before they closed down; so did my father-in-law. I decided to run some free promotions for my books on Amazon, figuring people may be stuck at home a while, may as well give them something they may like reading for free. I wish Amazon would let me run more free days or a deep discount in addition, but that’s for another post.
Listening to my wife and father-in-law talk about getting books made me realize something: at times like this the world needs storytellers. There are lots – and I mean lots – of people who really really really need an escape from reality right now. Those people will find it through art: music, poetry, fiction, film. We are in dark days, and people desperately need hope, they want something to look forward to.
At times like this it’s easy to dismiss your artistic pursuits in the name of survival. Don’t. Maybe being stuck inside you can write that novel, or draw that comic book, or plan that film for when you can get out and make it. It’s dark now, but it’s not going to last forever.
We will make it through this. We survived the Cuban Missile Crisis, Y2K, 9/11, the financial crisis…all those times it seemed like it was the end of the world while we were in the throes of it, but eventually the clouds parted and things got better.
Right around Halloween of 2009 a massive ice storm knocked the lights out where I live. We didn’t get our power back until a few days before Christmas. It sucked while I was going through it, but once I was through it I wrote my first novel.
Try to channel your experiences into your art. You may write a pandemic story (I can imagine next year there will be a bazillion of these). You may create something else. It doesn’t matter. Keep going. Do what you can.
Artists need to experience in order to create, and from powerful experiences come powerful works.
I can’t tell you how to do this. All I can tell you is you can do it. Don’t worry about it, don’t focus on it, just create. It’ll happen. Trust me.
You got this, people. Keep going, keep the faith.
Please leave a comment if you want to weigh in.