How Has Social Distancing and Solitude Affected Your Writing?

“’I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’”
—J.R.R. Tolkein

I haven’t posted here since June. Truthfully, I haven’t felt motivated to write, and I’m not alone. I’ve heard from many writer friends that they just don’t feel like writing or doing much else. The Coronavirus, politics, civil unrest, all of it has our brains filled to capacity leaving little room for creativity.

One of my clients, an editor at a publishing company, told me that next week, September 8, her team will finally be in the office together after almost six months. They’ve been combining working from home with skeleton staff onsite. I’m sure being together will be welcome, but different. Social distancing, hand sanitizer, masks . . .

Everything is different now. We’ve had to change how we navigate the world and how we interact.

When the pandemic began, as a freelancer working from home I thought not much would change. Solitude and some social distancing were my normal. But after a month or so, I started longing for mornings at the coffee shop, sipping a white chocolate raspberry latte, watching people come and go and listening to the chatter around me. I missed breaking from my work-in-progress to run errands midday and taking my laptop to the lake, writing there, watching the dog walkers and children playing in the park. Summer evenings were eerily quiet without distant sounds from local festivals and concerts in the park.

I’ve realized how much the world around me has a positive effect on my writing. All of the little normal things feed my creativity. A conversation overheard in the coffee shop, a new product on a store shelf, a game children play on the beach, sights, sounds—all of them wove their way into my writing without me even being aware. Now I struggle to write what is happy and bright. I find myself searching for ideas in my imagination or from my memories.

The controversial French author, Collette, wrote: “There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.” 

How has solitude affected your writing?
I hope you will comment.

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What Do You See—Something Commonplace or Something Totally Different?

Two authors standing side by side. One might see only what is commonplace while the other sees a great deal more.

This is how the author, Hamlin Garland, saw Greenfield, Indiana in the late 1800s:

“To my eyes it was the most unpromising field for art, especially for the art of verse. The landscape had no hills, no lakes, no streams of any movement or beauty. Ragged fence-rows, flat and dusty roads, fields of wheat alternating with clumps of trees – these were the features of a country which to me was utterly commonplace . . .”

But the poet, James Whitcomb Riley, saw his birthplace, Greenfield, differently. The dusty wooden plank road stretching through Greenfield, the vast, flat farmland with its rickety fences, the scent of buckwheat and basswood . . . . these inspired him to write in the voice of a farmer using a Hoosier dialect sprinkled with 19th century, Middle-Western colloquialisms.

Different things inspire our words. Two writers can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.

As October slips away, take a walk with Riley and see Greenfield through his eyes:

WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

 

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

 

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries—kindo’ lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover over-head!—
O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

 

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;
And your cider-makin’ ’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! …
I don’t know how to tell it—but ef sich a thing could be
As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me—
I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Look around.
Take a break from raking leaves
(or whatever else you’re doing).
What do you see—something commonplace
or something totally different?

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and inspiration for writers.

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How Autumn Can Supercharge Your Descriptive Writing

Last month, I shared with you summer-themed poetry and suggested you study its descriptive paragraphs, sentences and phrases and apply what you learned to your own writing.

The seasons have shifted now from summer to fall. Think about the ambiance words create in these autumn poems and compare them to the mood of summer poetry.

In her “November Night”, American poet, Adelaide Crapsey (1878–1914) invokes a powerful image using less than twenty words. What does your mind “see” when you read her poem?

November Night
Listen…
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.

Notice how the English poet and aesthetic philosopher, T.E. Hulme (1883–1917), uses similes to create a word picture in his short poem, “Autumn”.

Autumn
A touch of cold in the Autumn night –
I walked abroad,
And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge
Like a red-faced farmer.
I did not stop to speak, but nodded,
And round about were the wistful stars
With white faces like town children.

Now, compare the mood of the English poet Rainer Maria Rilke‘s poem “Autumn” to Hulme’s. Rilke (1875–1926) was a master at weaving word pictures with existential thoughts.

Autumn
The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”
And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.
We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It’s in them all.
And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

Three poets: Crapsey, Hulme and Rilke, all living in the same era, writing about the same theme, using words to create significantly different images. Use what you’ve learned reading their words to supercharge your own writing—

Start right now by writing
your own autumn-themed descriptive
paragraph or poem.

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If you are on Facebook, Check out my page where I post articles
and inspiration for writers.

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