Only a couple short months ago, I referred to January as Writer’s Summertime. It’s a deep-freeze month when I’m glad to be indoors at my writing desk every day. Such a contrast to the hard physical work dawn-to-dusk during the farm’s growing season.
This year, January was not the usual writer’s retreat month. In terms of writerly productivity, it was a total wash. The day after New Year’s, my partner said he felt poorly. Within three more days, we’d both tested positive for COVID-19. He had a relatively mild case. I had a moderately more miserable case, but was still able to duke it out at home. Thankful for that.
A month later, I’m still winded on very short walks and can become suddenly jet-lag tired at any time of day. I can fall asleep at the computer or at the wheel. I no longer drive more than a few blocks from my house. This “long-COVID” chronic fatigue thing is real and palpable. Wow.
I am catching up on work for all my clients, but have energy for that alone. There’s nothing left for domestic chores or my own creative work. Not fun.
What on earth do you do when a freight train like this blows through your Writer’s July? Whole sections of my project slate have big “ON HOLD” labels written over them.
I have a few other clients struggling with similar personal crises that have blown apart their book project goals for this quarter. How do you get back in the flow after a life-altering emergency? How do you re-create a writing practice when your lifestyle is perhaps permanently altered?
I recently shared my own personal “Writer’s First Aid Kit” with a couple of these clients. I’m laying hold of it myself too! The first aid kit involves a handful of simple writing drills that have helped me re-establish flow in the midst of the most difficult life-changing events. These drills have helped me start writing again while helping with long-term care-giving for a loved one, while navigating the years after a divorce, and now while dealing with the ripple effects of serious illness.
These prompts are not my originals. They’ve all been circulating in writing workshops and literary centers for decades. I think I heard most of these prompts individually through memoir- and fiction-writing courses with Mary Carroll Moore at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, MN.
The combination below is particularly effective. For one week, commit to the following for about 30 minutes per day:
Mind and Spirit Warm-up
1. Gratitude Basics
Take 3 to 5 minutes riffing on the prompt, “I am in love with my life because…”
(Yes. Do this. Write a gratitude list or a single narrative scene about something beautiful you experienced recently, in the midst of the crisis. It feels cheesy. That’s why you need to do it.)
2. Three-word Sentence
Pick one scene from your current book project and take 5 minutes to write 3-word sentences related to that scene. Don’t worry about it being usable prose or not. Just write. See where it takes you, read it at the end of the ten minutes, circle any surprises.
Into the Work
3. Sensory Connections
For that same scene, take 7 to 10 minutes to write a brisk list of sensory details. Drop into the memory (or fictional scene) and scan each of your senses. What do you taste, smell, see, hear, and feel in that scene? You’re not writing the scene itself, not recounting the story. You’re just writing a bulleted list of interesting sensory details.
Once the list is done, look through it and highlight or circle the snippets that startled or spoke to you as you wrote them or as you re-read them.
4. Sensory Scenes
Now take another 10 minutes actually writing that scene, working in the most evocative sensory details.
Writer’s Cool Down
5. Focused Gratitude
Take 3 minutes to riff on the prompt, “I am in love with this project because…”
If you give this Writer’s First Aid Kit a try, let me know how it goes. It works well for all kinds of crises, from serious life-altering traumas (personal illness, death of loved one) to minor but also impactful events (schedule changes, alterations to your work space). It also has helped my clients as a remedy for garden variety writer’s block.
Let me know if you have other prompts you use in similar situations.
Anika Hanisch is a ghostwriter, line editor, and book coach who primarily serves natural health practitioners and people with unique survivor/thriver memoir manuscripts or book ideas. Take some time to learn more about her genre preferences, then contact her about involvement in your next book!