I have been away this week (remember 'away'? Not in your own home). I was at a writers' conference (if any work people are looking) or retreat if we acknowledge the relatively small amount of official conferring that happened. It was wonderful to see writerly friends I've not seen for years, and valuable to mull how the pandemic has affected us and how we have responded. I chaired a session on this, and aside from the varied personal impacts, one thing emerged which perhaps needs saying loudly and clearly. It's something of an addendum to Dawn Finch's post on the value of the creative industries two days ago.
The pandemic, like a war, has been a curious split of terror/anguish on one side and crushing boredom on the other. The undoubted heroes of the pandemic are the frontline workers who have dealt with the first part, endangering themselves to help others. But for the greater mass of people who do not have covid, or have had it but without needing hospitalisation, part of the problem has been coping — including coping with feeling that we are not contributing much. Don't underestimate the value of staying in and not catching covid; that's a very valuable contribution. Coping is hard, and has included mental heatlh struggles for very many of us. How would we have got through the interminable lockdowns without Netflix, box sets, TV, music, books, magazines and newspapers (online or off), YouTube, blogs... add your creative fix of choice. The creative industries gave you all those. They brought meaning, comfort, and distraction in that dragging, drawn-out struggle. They are not only worth £13 million an hour to the UK economy; they also saved our sanity and perhaps some lives in the drear desert of lockdown. They gave us imaginative and emotional connections, and tools to survive. And they gave us something to talk about on Zoom or by phone to our separated loved ones — something that went beyond the daily figures and fears. To fellow writers who worried that 'all' they could do was write — we spun a vital lifeline for some readers, and are still making the lifelines that can be thrown to people in the coming post-pandemic turmoil. And to anyone who doubts the value of creative work — next pandemic, you can try doing it without your books, your TV or your tablet/laptop, without your music collection or your radio, and see how that goes.
Out now: Salariya 2020
4 comments:
Anne,I was struggling with my first attempt at a novel - which was rubbish and now consigned to the drawer - when the pandemic struck in March 2020. Because I could no longer work on a library computer, I invested in a laptop and was able to complete the novel at home. I was struggling at the library, so the pandemic enabled me to make rapid progress at home and finish the thing. It's funny how life works out for you. Regards, Rodney Taylor.
Thank you Anne, this is so helpful to remember.
That's good news, Rodney - well done!
Liked this post, especially your comment about not underestimating "the value of staying in and not catching covid; that's a very valuable contribution". I hadn't thought of it that way before. Staying home did help, didn't it?
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