On Tour: January 1 – February 28, 2021

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Writing Through the Apocalypse

Stay at home, they said. Only go out for essential reasons, they said. For the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and us in Pittsburgh, those pandemic directives were effective April Fool’s Day, 2020. You can’t make this stuff up. I was left parsing the meaning of ‘essential.’ I wrote three novels—including The Things That Last Forever—and more than a dozen short stories while sitting in a well-known coffee chain. To me, the commute and concentration I needed to block out the coffee-shop hub-bub was ‘essential’ to my writing. But now I had the same problem as everyone else.

How to reinvent my work habits?

I did have advantages. I have a workable home office with a door (which my spouse closes with glee after I enter). I was already in the right profession, because the first draft of any story is up to me alone. And thanks to the loss of my commute, I had more time to write.

But home offices have disadvantages. The main one is that the first draft is up to me alone. The rest can be summed up as the refrigerator, the desperate requirement to keep the bird feeder topped up, and the immediate need to investigate any household noise. In short, distractions, any distractions, real or imagined.

Needless to say, for several months, I didn’t complete a lot of work. It wasn’t for lack of trying. Or, as my father used to say (as I sat in my bedroom doing my homework), “Oh, I see you’re trying. Very trying.” He would then close my bedroom door. Gleefully, I think.

See how that happened? Distractions don’t even require a refrigerator or bird feeder.

By the time August rolled around, I knew needed help. I did an intervention on myself and reviewed everything I was doing, starting in the most logical place.

My playlist.

What I found was disturbing. I listen to my playlist when commuting or taking walks, and I delete and add songs to keep it fresh. My review found lots of new songs from Smile Empty Soul and Death Cab for Cutie. I’m not saying it was depressing. The word isn’t quite strong enough. I started deleting, although I did add one song that made me smile every time I heard it.

I also rethought my original commute to the coffee shop. I read, about that time, of people so desperate for normalcy they drove their pre-pandemic work commute round-trip every morning before they started their work-day from home. They said it got them in the right frame of mind.

I decided I needed a new commute as well.

I chose to walk from my office to the dining room. The first thing I did when I arrived was to close the dining room door. Myself. With glee. At the dining room table, I fired up the same IPad and detachable keyboard I used at the coffee shop to write my first three books.

Amazingly, it worked.

By December I had the first draft of my fourth book. A couple of short stories in my pocket.

I’m not going to say it was easy, but I’m still at it. And who knows, perhaps by the end of the year I can revisit the coffee shop every day.

In the meantime, I’ll keep listening to that one song I added to my playlist. Perhaps you should, too. It’s called Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the cover sung by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole.

It’s winter. We could all use a little sunshine.

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