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Key points
- It can be hard to focus on our writing in the face of global or national events that bring us to our knees.
- Feeling our work is insignificant doesn't have to stop us from doing it—in fact, it mustn't, because the work actually is important.
- However you go about it, continuing to hone your craft and maintain your writing habits matters.
Every writer—no matter the size of their audience, their material wealth, the accolades they’ve received, or their prolificacy—has moments when they feel their work doesn’t matter.
Maybe you felt this after the 2016 election, a time when, as an editor and life coach for writers, I heard this sentiment from bestselling authors and unpublished writers alike. Maybe you felt it when the COVID-19 pandemic began, or when it dragged into a second and then third year, or when the U.S. hit one million COVID deaths. Maybe you’ve powered through all those events with purpose, only to feel your drive hobbled by the recent sight of murder victims on the floor of a supermarket or classroom.
The world has always been full of reasons for us to feel like everything we do—not just writing—is insignificant. In the best of circumstances, we feel this when gazing out at the cosmos on a starry night or taking in a broad vista of mountains or ocean. In those moments, the smallness of our lives can feel like a gift, a reminder that our individual anxieties and dramas are, in the longer arc of this planet’s life, a blip. But the insignificance we feel in the face of overwhelming world events can well up a sense of futility, of purposelessness.
But your voice matters. What you have to say matters. And creating art matters. It’s part of what uplifts and connects this world, what helps people to understand themselves and each other better. Being good at it matters because the better your work is, the more it will do for people. Honing your craft matters.
Here are some suggestions for what to write when you’re consumed by that feeling of futility, when you can’t bear to sit down and make yourself care about your current work-in-progress. Stop doom-scrolling, pull yourself away from the media, traditional and social, and try one of these exercises to keep your head and hands in your craft:
Write a letter to someone you love.
They may be living or dead, and you may share it with them or keep it to yourself. Whoever they are and whatever you choose to do with it later, for now, just think of somebody you love to whom you want to say something.
If you are focused on someone in the news, write the scene where you meet them.
Think about the news story you can’t get out of your head and choose the person who has most taken your mind captive—a politician, a murderer, a bystander, a victim—whoever is inspiring the biggest emotion in you. Write a dialogue scene between you and this person. Where does this scene take place, and in what context? What would you say to them, given a chance? What would happen in this imagined conversation? What would it change for them? For you? Let your imagination take you into this scene and see where it leads you.
Write a memory of a time you felt… dealer’s choice.
What emotion do you want to connect with right now? Something that feels uplifting—when you felt joyful, in control, or inspired? Or something that resonates with the way you’re feeling right now—frustrated, angry, sorrowful? Or some other emotion entirely, one that takes you entirely out of this moment—surprised, cunning, satisfied?
Choose the emotion you want to focus on; then browse the stacks of your memory’s library to find a moment from your life when you felt that way. Write about it, paying special attention to conveying the emotion in a way that transports you into the way you felt at that time.
Get inspired by great art.
If you truly cannot pull one original word out of your brain right now, then write out the text of a favorite poem or song. Include the proper attribution of the original author, but feel the feeling of writing these words that are meaningful to you. And see if they unfurl with new meaning or inspiration by putting them through this process.
Take action.
If you are completely consumed by current events to the point where focusing on yourself and your work feel like an act of surrender, then write to your representatives. And make what you write to them—a letter, an email, a script for a phone call—a true expression of your creative impulse, a truly crafted vehicle of the message you want to convey.
All of it uses your writing muscle. All of it keeps you connected to the work of honing your craft. And all of it matters.
