Writing Can Save Your Life

Sounds dramatic, I know, to say that writing can save your life. But during this long period of staying at home, writing has saved my life. It’s given me something to look forward to, something to do every day, something to think about, plan for, assemble notes for, blather on page after page in a Word file so that I can gather ideas for whatever I’m going to write next.

I’m sure other people have paintings or drawings or photography. Or they work in their cars, or prune their already immaculate rosebushes, whatever. Most of us have something that allows us to spend copious amounts of time doing very little, and enjoying ourselves immensely. I only have writing, and so far, during this awful pandemic, writing has been doing the trick.

The pandemic is going to change what people choose to do with their time. Even after the danger is over, people may not want to go to the historical lectures I’ve been presenting at local libraries, to promote my novel. Does that mean that from now on, my promotional work is over? Perhaps. Or that nobody’s going to know about any of my new work? Perhaps.

But I don’t seem to be worried about how well known my books will be or who reads them. Mostly I’m enjoying the process of planning my writing and then putting words down on paper. For now, that’s enough for me. I could never say that before in my career. I was always intensely interested in how I could make my work known to the world, to the legions of what I was always sure would be my adoring fans.

For the moment, I don’t care. Just the act of writing is enough. Thank God that I have it.