Writing and other forms of madness in the age of COVID-19

It’s strange how quickly the COVID-19 crisis, something on which we might expect to universally agree, turned into an incredibly sensitive subject. Hyper-political types immediately hijacked the topic, making any innocent comment a target for accusation and suspicion. Conspiracy theorists and alarmists can easily spot the signs, they will ALL-CAPS at you, of a lab created virus, or one that doesn’t really exist at all, or, you know, the work of the devil.

Defying the official recommendation of wearing masks in public for the safety of yourself and others is somehow a heroic act of patriotism for these guys.

That’s as political as I intend to get. Mostly, I just want to offer whatever light I can in the pall of the plague. It won’t last forever, and it’s bound to change things – the medical industry let’s hope – for the better. Ever an occasional Pollyanna, I hold fast to a hope that this will be catalyst for a trend toward kindness. I hope we emerge resolved across national and personal boundaries to help everyone heal and move on.

In the meantime, lives are being lost. If you have lost a loved one to the virus, or just had a scare, please know I’m thinking of you and hurting for you. I’m no professional counselor, but if there’s anyone who just needs a listener, here’s my email: chozenn1@msn.com.

When the word came down that the citizenry was confined to its homes, more or less, while the COVID-19 epidemic ran its course, it occurred to me, as it did to many other writers and artists, to take advantage and make this The Most Productive Era of my writing career.  Better still, it would finally uncork the creative juices frozen inside my first ever bout with writer’s block.

Aaand, like so many of my associates, such was not the case.

Rewind four months. I had just turned in Demon Harvest to Lyrical Press. It was the third of a trilogy, all three done back to back. The best time I’ve ever had writing. Fun, and the good feeling of career momentum. I gave myself the requisite week-and-a-half break from writing; already looking forward to the start of something new. Depression kicked up, perhaps triggered by the end of the three book deal. Some physical injuries. Increasingly worse news concerning the virus.

Still, I had always fallen right back into the groove before. Just needed to settle on the right project and then it was back to the gory, often gleeful grind of horror writing. I had already begun a new series of themed short stories, so that was easy to pick up. There was also my very first novel, shelved for various reasons in the past, which I was resolved to finish. This was the perfect time.

The fire that burns under a writer’s ass and makes her/him/that take the seat and start typing was at a low smolder. I looked for ways to trick myself into writing – rewards, punishments, lots of inner shaming. Once stuck at home, I only saw more obstacles arise.

I sought out some experienced advice. Some say to take a break, it’ll renew your battery. I tried this one for a while and did feel a desire to get back to work – just not a lot of confidence in it. The need to write didn’t translate into sudden outburst of enthusiasm and creativity. This gave me an appreciation and maybe even a bit of envy for news writers, writers-for-hire who are assigned movie novelizations, and even screenwriters (more on this in a later entry) who are handed a concept and told to run with it — within the parameters of budget, available casting, scheduling, etc.

Others say no matter what – don’t stop writing. Shitty writing is better than no writing, is the rationale, and you can always improve on it later.  I went into re-write mode on a number of different projects sitting on backburners, or even stuffed away in the metaphorical freezer. And now I’ve run out of (most) of those. I’ve gotten out of the habit of blogging regularly, mostly because I figure nobody reads blogs anymore, but, if I may be meta for a moment, this blog is my attempted jump-off point for the re-start.

Hey, if you don’t read it, you won’t hate it, right?

In a high school English class, we were expected to keep a journal, commenting on whatever we wished, to be turned in at the end of the grading period. What a drag, we all thought, except for one clever young lady, whom I’ll call Lori, since that was her name.

Smelling an easy A, she opened up her journal and laid down page upon page of stream-of-consciousness rambling, a strategy which I expected would send her straight to the fail list like the me, as would be the case with any other assignment. She was thinking quite outside the casket though, in demonstrating that she cared about the assignment and understood the most basic purpose of writing,

My concept of the assignment was that we were to eloquently show an attempt to understand important current events. My attention span was short as a firecracker fuse. My interest in anything other than babes or lifting weights was nil. Had I known Lori’s brilliant secret, hell I would have “journaled” about those very topics.

With Lori in mind I now resolve to post more frequent blog entries for the estimated two to three people reading So, if you liked my “quirky queue” capsule film reviews from a few years back look for that to return. I’m more into  metal now than I have ever been for some reason so I plan to celebrate that and gush over some favorite bands.

More about me and my projects past and future too; a favorite topic, though I have been hampered by self-consciousness disguised as humility.
So stay with me, that one reader, and watch me lose my mind, or become curmudgeonly as I age, or whatever awaits. I appreciate your fleeting company.