Staying Creative During a Global Pandemic

Unfortunately, we've officially reached the one-year anniversary of being in quarantine. I vividly remember receiving the email from my university that said classes would be cancelled for a few days and we would move to virtual classes for a short period of time. "Great! A second Spring Break," I innocently thought to myself. Little did I know that a year later, COVID-19 would still very well be a significant part of our lives.

Living during a historic, global pandemic has taken a toll on everyone. It can be really hard to get motivated to do anything; including the things you are passionate about. For me, it was writing. Even before going into quarantine, I was struggling a lot with finding the time and energy to do creative writing.

Despite of this, there were actually a few random days where I wrote a lot. As I looked back at the past year, I came up with a few ways that I stayed creative during the pandemic that may perhaps help you too!

1. Looking Through Past Projects

If I am being completely honest, I believe that looking through stuff that I have written in the past helped me a lot in getting me back into writing. I remember one day, last summer, I booted up my 10+ year old laptop that very surprisingly still works. This was the where I had written a ton of stories and scripts that will never see the light of day. As I looked through each document, I remembered how much fun I had while writing and how it was one of the only creative outlets I had at the time. Not only was it was a fun trip down memory lane, but a few days later, I was inspired and wrote 30+ of a script. It obviously was was not good or anything, but I had not written like that in years and it felt really good.

2. Doodling and Writing Everything Down

As I mentioned in my last article, I highly recommend both doodling and writing every idea you think of down. Doodling in my notebook has not only been really relaxing, but a huge help in staying creative when I am unable to. Writing everything down is also very important because, no matter what, you will forget about that scene you thought about before bed.

3. Trying Something New

Don't be afraid to try something new! For me, I tried getting into baking and photography over the course of last year. Though baking did not work too well (as I was the only one in my household who would eat the results...), I've found that the photos that I take now have vastly improved since I branched out from just taking pictures of my cats with my phone. If you have the chance, try branching out yourself and see if you can find a new or additional passion!