When lockdown hit I was near the end of the third year of my PhD in Creative Writing at Glasgow Uni. I thought being confined to my house would mean I could blast through all my work and I even dreamt about finishing ahead of schedule. Every day of that first week, I woke up early, sat at my computer and stared at Word’s blinking cursor but I couldn’t write.

I tried writing at different times throughout the day. I tried listening to a variety of music. I tried writing things unrelated to my thesis. I tried and I tried and I tried. Nothing worked. Anxiety crept into my chest and so I experimented with other diversions.

I joined Tik Tok, cleaned, binge watched Netflix, played Animal Crossing, and baked. My stress didn’t go away. It grew. In a moment of desperation, I pulled out a new journal and doodled.

It was something I used to do along the margins of notebooks – a mindless task. That day, I drew a bird. Black ink on cream-colored, dotted paper, the bird was surrounded by white space, so I logged a few facts about the day in the top right corner. When a sentence fluttered around my mind, I threw it at the page and shut the book before it could escape.  

The next day, I went back and the day after that. I drew a bear, a koala, a palm tree, and then more birds. I started each day with an image in my head and words gathered around the picture, growing into poems. I am not a poet and my writing was not good, but it didn’t matter. There was comfort in the routine and the return to words.

I thought I didn’t need to write – that it wasn’t the time for my stories. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Writing was the only thing that helped me manage the stress I’d been accumulating over the weeks and it continues to help me today.

Creative writing allows me to escape my flat while still complying with lockdown’s rules. It gives me control, an endangered feeling in today’s current affairs, while still providing space for surprise. It could be compared to hiking. Walking up a munro might be harder and take longer than strolling through a garden but at the end of the hill my mind is clear and I feel better for having done it.

Writing also focuses my overactive imagination. The same mind that allows me to come up with fantastical worlds and characters, when left idle, turns on me. I can get caught up in loops of negativity and envision every worst-case scenario. Writing exercises my mind so that at the end of the day I can quiet my thoughts and relax.

There is a lot going on in the world these days and as such, there is no one answer for how to deal with stress. While writing helps me most days, there are the other days where it is all too much. Those are the days I spend terraforming my island (Animal Crossing) and re-watching Schitt’s Creek but all the while, in the back of my head, I keep thinking about my stories. I tend to them in my mind so they will be ready once I return to the page.

Try it Yourself

If you would like to try some creative writing but aren’t sure where to start, try this exercise. It can be done on your own or with socially distanced friends. You will need something to write on, a timer set for 10-20 minutes, and 6-10 random sentences.

If you are doing this with friends, have everyone come up with a sentence. It can be anything (ex: The dog ran through the park.). If you are doing this on your own, find the sentences in a book or magazine. Once you have your selection, pick two. Those sentences are the first and last line of your story. Write until your timer goes off or until you finish but the most important thing to remember is to have fun with it.