Pandemic Induced Creative Drought

I can’t write at the moment. 

I can’t read at the moment. 

And I haven’t been able to for close to a year now. 

I have a massive To Be Read pile (that continues to grow, albeit more slowly now) and I have notebooks and scraps of paper with story ideas, started outlines, partially fleshed out outlines, several started stories, novels, screenplays, flash fiction, and novellas with anywhere from 10 to 4,000 words sitting in my Google Drive and the Notes app on my phone. 

I can hear the 1’s and 0’s of the software taunting me but I can’t make it go. Same with reading. I am about a third of the way through a book by an author I really enjoy but even when I have the time to read for a bit after all the chores are done before I go to bed, I got nothin’. 

After weeks and then months of feeling this way it doesn’t seem to be about physical energy as much as mental and emotional energy. At least for me. 

Since the lockdowns began life has felt like Groundhog Day sometimes more than others. We wake up, wrangle our Tiny Human, do basic chores and house and personal upkeep, order groceries online, wash or wipe down and rinse the daily deliveries of stuff we used to just pick up at a store, cook, additional wrangling and entertaining of the Tiny Human, then after dinner, a bath, and the standard bedtime routine, the Tiny Human will sometimes agree to sleep after additional negotiations. Then I work for a few hours before going to bed myself, usually around 2 or 3am and get up at 8am to do it all over again. 

It’s been like that for about 13 months now and it’s exhausting. 

Don’t get me wrong, we are healthy and safe and very fortunate to be in the situation we are and I am not complaining about that at all. 

I know I am not the only one who is fatigued by the last 13 months and I know there are those who have it worse and those who have it better. I am only talking about my situation. 

I’m weary. That’s all. 

As I am sitting here typing this I know it’s probably disjointed and not polished and I have no idea how it will come across or be interpreted and while that would have bothered me before, now I don’t care. 

We’re all tired.

We’re all fatigued. 

We all want to see and hug our loved ones.

We all have it better than some and worse than some. 

We have what and who we have and are making of it what we can. 

Maybe sometime in the not too distant future I will be able to get the words out of my head and onto the page.