Write (or Not) Despite

—From Cathy

So…how you holding up out there?

Karen and I did a check-in with each other yesterday. An honest-to-god phone call. Not email. And it was lovely hearing her voice – and having a full-on bitch session about all that’s happening right now. Believe me when I tell you: Karen and I perfected marathon bitch sessions. We practiced lots when we were roommates in college.

Sailors would cover their ears. Just saying.

Anyway, are you doing the same? Taking care of yourselves physically and mentally, and do you have a support system to reach out to?

You do. If you’re reading this, you do.

Please let us know how you’re coping during this far-fetched alternate universe we find ourselves in now.

Are you writing?

Personally, when it comes to writing fiction, I can’t even. Maybe because:

• Reality seems so fictionalized right now that I’m unable to dream up anything on my own, or
• I can’t imagine the characters I’ve been developing so long living in the particular world we’re in right now, or
• I don’t want to imagine them there, or
• I can’t picture them in a normal world either.

So, I find myself stuck.

Anne Tyler has a new book out. She’s my fave, so of course I’ve read it already. (Redhead By the Side of the Road—it’s a good one. Check it out.)

Tyler’s given numerous interviews about the book, and of course the COVID question pops up, and here’s what she had to say about writing at this time:

“For the first few days, I seemed to keep writing the same three pages over and over again. I just had a general feeling of distractedness. Eventually, though, I did sink back into my work. I happened to be writing about an Easter dinner with a lot of people attending, some of them behaving a bit snarkily with each other. I thought, Oh, now I remember why I write. I write because it makes me happy.”

I guess that’s the key. Write if you can, because it makes you happy. And, in a blessed stroke of luck, what you write will hopefully make others happy too when it makes its way into the world.

Speaking of which, since I’m unable to write, I’ve been focusing on submitting. And I’m happy to say my story “Gently Used” is now up on Wordrunner’s Onward anthology. Yay.

So, if you’re like me and you can’t write, read. Or submit. Or call a friend, zoom with your mom, walk the dog. Do what makes you happy.

Please know we’re pulling for you, and sending you all the positive vibes you need to write despite—all of it. We wish you good health and enough peace and comfort in your lives to keep writing, always.