Pandemic Writer's Malaise?
The other night, we had our second Playwright Mastermind Meeting this Fall, and it was curious, for most of the group, and myself included, were feeling this strange Pandemic Writer’s Malaise. A few had written some pages and gotten some work done, but many were so caught up in the Election and all that is happening with the spiking numbers of this pandemic, that the page count was very low.
So we took some time to talk about it, to express our concerns and our fears, and soon this stange Pandemic Writer’s Malaise lifted, and we got back to looking at the bigger picture and the smaller picture of being a playwright and creator in this Brave New World.
The challenge is to keep your vision clear, in a world where there is very poor visibility of the future. And that’s hard. Real hard.
In the past, we based our decisions and our motivation on what we saw was possible in our vision of the future, but now that the future is clouded in the unknown, many of us, after 8 months of this unexpected and challenging new environment, feel are actions are fruitless.
So what can we do?
Talk about it.
Find anyone who is willing to listen and just vent. Don’t worry about finding solutions or anything at all, just express your bottle-necked feelings. Let them out of your brain, you body, and your focus. Just talk about all you are feeling.
Journal about it.
Julia Cameron, in her wildly best-selling book, THE ARTIST’S WAY, recommends writing at least 3 pages of “stream of consciousness” every morning with a pad and a pen. Just write whatever comes out when you bring your pen to paper. I did this years ago, when I was going through a hard time, and it is remarkable. You empty out your fears, your pain, your sadness, your rage, and all your concerns about the day on to the page, and when done, often you are very very clear, and able to focus like never before on your creative projects. Julia calls them the MORNING PAGES. They are a powerful tool that allows you to get focused and back to work on what is important!
And this is my favorite:
Write about it.
My favorite way of getting “problems” out of my mind is to write about them, as specifically as possible. Most of my early plays are about situations from real life, that made me angry or upset, and I simply took these real life situations and found a new context, changed the names, and brought my life experience to the page, and then to life on the stage. Writing like this is a profound and powerful experience which absolutely helps one heal, and you have a great play when you are done too.
Just recently, I was feeling really frustrated with this pandemic and how people are responding to it. I decided to write a short 10 minute screenplay, about a guy, who is so angry about everything and he just can’t deal, so he starts making little videos on his phone to talk with his deceased father. I just recently filmed it, and I will release it in the next couple of weeks once it is edited, but just this process of telling this story has shifted my personal perspective, and my possibilities as a playwright/creator.
And most importantly, I feel better.
Stories have an incredible power to heal others, and strangely enough, ourselves.
Choose today, right now, not to let Pandemic Writer’s Malaise stop you from fulfilling your mission on this planet.
It’s time to write. It’s time to create.