It’s been a weird last two months.
Shops are closed, banks are closed, pubs are closed, churches are closed… The UK is closed, the World is closed.
So what else is left? Virtual learning for schoolchildren, zoom for workers at home. Clapping for carers every Thursday night at 8pm, PMs briefing every night between 4pm and 5pm (not always held by the PM) and no-one allowed out except for trips to the shops and exercising.
The Covid19 pandemic has reset our way of thinking and our planet is thankful for it.
Animals and wildlife now congregate in our towns, like the goats in Llandudno (Wales), bird song is now the loudest noise, no longer blocked out by the sound of cars, and pollution is now down to record levels in decades.
As someone said, pollution levels down, less airplanes, less cars on the roads, same amount of cows … will this prove to be the end of global warming?
Do billionaires want us to get back to work, so that we can stop saving our money and start spending it on their products?
As we start to wonder when this country will leave lockdown, we look forward nervously to a new normal, one where we will have more respect for each other, where we are more likely to shop locally and treat our planet with more respect.
What does this mean for me as a writer? Over the last 44 days of lockdown since it started on March 23rd 2020, I have struggled to write – most of this has been due to being so overwhelmed with news about Covid and being almost unable to escape the barrage of daily information overload.
However, being inside the house all this time, has now created new habits into my life as a writer, including :
– saving money with no more trips to coffee shops
– writing as a daily habit
– no longer procrastinating but using my time in a scheduled, constructive way.
– removing all the clutter in my life
So, I continue with my writing in a new way, using a chrome book and google docs which replace my Mac and scrivener, not only trimming down my laptop startup times, but also removing the clutter and going back to basics and allowing me to find more time to write instead of editing.
I leave you with this question… What has changed in your writers life and what changes do you want to carry on post lockdown.
Thanks for reading, have fun writing and please stay safe.
– Brett