With some variation, most of our days look very similar right now due to COVID-19. Basically, we’re all at home with time we rarely had before.

I’m currently working from home, so I don’t have an entire day free, but the clock after five has never been slower. And I think I’ve spent more time outside the last two weeks than I did all last summer.

This (minus the negative implications of, y’know, a pandemic) should be a kind of writer’s paradise. For the first time in a while I have time to write without distraction.

And yet, I’m not producing much more than I was before.

Writer’s block? I’ve been taught not to believe in writer’s block and after many years of writing and facing times where I just couldn’t write – I still believe it’s not really a thing. My favorite quote about it comes from Ray Bradbury:

“What if you have a blockage and you don’t know what to do about it? Well, it’s obvious you’re doing the wrong thing, aren’t you? . . . You’re being warned, aren’t you? Your subconscious is saying I don’t like you anymore. You’re writing about things I don’t give a damn for. . . If you have writers’ block you can cure it this evening by stopping what you’re doing and writing something else. You picked the wrong subject.”

This is something I’ve had to remember time and time again.

I’ve been wanting to write poetry about having to be home and social-distance, but it’s not happening for me.

So what I want to write about isn’t what I really want to write about and I need to change my direction.

I’d say if you were facing writer’s block, it’s the same for you.