If I had to sum up my (and, I think, many other people’s) experience of 2020 in one word, it would be “exhausting.”

I am tired of pandemic life. I am tired of the many difficult things that have happened this year that were made harder by the pandemic. And I am tired of watching humanity make the same horrible mistakes over and over and over again. As individuals, I still believe that we are all capable of wonderful things, and I believe that there are many good people out there. But collectively, humanity has a long way to go if we ever want to be worthy of the gifts we’ve been given as a species.

To have so much potential, and to fall so painfully short of it, is demoralizing, whether you’re talking globally or personally. And writing when you’re tired and depressed—creating anything of value, really—can seem like a Sisyphean task better abandoned sooner rather than later.

But I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: we need art. We need poetry. We need stories and music and beauty precisely because there is so much ugliness and pain and suffering out there to counterbalance. 

Writing for Money When You Feel Spent

If you only write for pleasure, or don’t currently depend on your writing for necessary income, go ahead and skip to the next section. If you write both for pleasure and for your paycheck, keep reading—we’re in the same boat, and I know from experience it’s not an easy one to keep afloat.

Chances are you already feel pressure to perform, pressure which—even when the world doesn’t feel like it’s ending—can weigh on you pretty heavily. After all, you write for your bread; if you don’t write, you don’t eat… right?

Unless you change careers, you can’t change that fact. There is a certain level of responsibility that must be maintained if you want to keep writing and keep making that income. However, it’s incredibly likely that much of that pressure you feel is self-inflicted. You can alleviate at least some of that pressure by rewriting the narrative around your situation. So whenever it all starts to feel like too much to handle, remember:

• If you write for money, that means the person paying you thinks your writing is worth paying for. Especially in times like these, that says a lot.
• Writing is flexible. You may specialize in a certain subject matter, but even within a single subject lies a world of possibilities. If one road leads to a dead end, there is always another road less traveled to explore.
• There’s a reason we writers are famous for rewriting our work. Don’t make the mistake of holding yourself to a higher standard than Hemingway or Shakespeare—we’re all making it up as we go along. It’s okay to get things wrong sometimes.
• See your mistakes, in writing and in life, for what they are: opportunities. Some turn out to be happy mistakes; others turn out to be a chance to learn and grow. Both are ultimately valuable.

That being said, writing during stressful times is hard, and burnout is real. Take time off when you need to, if you can. If you can’t, maybe you can ask for help, for a little extra time or support, or simply a little more encouragement. And if you can’t ask for any of those things, maybe consider taking your writing elsewhere—to clients or employers more respectful and deserving of your time and effort.

Give yourself a break, too. Stay hydrated. Keep healthy snacks handy. Take time to organize, if you’re able, or reorganize, if you need to. If you can’t reduce your workload just yet, reduce stress elsewhere in your life. It’s okay if the dishes don’t get washed right after dinner, as long as they eventually do get washed. It’s okay if you need to ask for a little help from a friend or family member in keeping up with your chores or other minor responsibilities. It’s okay to make time for yourself, time to relax and rest and recharge.

Really—it’s okay.

Writing to Help Your Audience During Difficult Times

If you’ve got an audience, even if it’s just your son or daughter or partner or best friend, chances are they’ve felt just as down-and-out as you feel now—and it’s an unfortunate fact of life that they will probably feel this way again in the future.

Remember how it feels to read something you enjoy, something that speaks to you, something to which you can relate and into which you can pour all of your sorrows and frustrations, and out of which you can extract even the tiniest measure of catharsis. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. It just has to be something you connect with, for one reason or another, on some level.

Now imagine your audience feeling that connection with your writing. Imagine that your writing can make a difference, even in just one reader’s life—because it absolutely can. Even if all you manage to evoke is a single laugh, smile, or tear, that moment might be the moment that gets that person through the rest of their day. A good laugh can relieve a migraine (believe me, I know). A good cry can help a person get to sleep at night—and let’s face it, most of us haven’t had nearly enough good sleep this year.

Your writing matters, whether it reaches millions of people, a handful, or just one. In fact, writing is never a waste of time, even if the only person who ever reads it is you.

Writing for Yourself When You’re Tired and Depressed

I get it. Writing when you’re tired and depressed and knowing no one will read your work, either because your readership is nonexistent or because you don’t plan on sharing, might seem pretty pointless when there are so many other things to do and worry about. 

It’s a lot like exercise. We put it off, and we feel bad. Then we put it off because we feel bad, and when we feel worse, we keep putting it off. And so the cycle goes.

But everyone needs an outlet, a way to process the good and especially the bad in life. This year, of all years, we need to take care of ourselves as well as each other. And for writers, that means writing even when you’re tired and depressed.

It will help. Maybe not a lot, not at first, and you might not feel it right away. You might feel a little rusty at first if it’s been awhile. And you might be tempted to stop before you’ve even really begun.

It’s okay to feel that way. Keep going anyway. If you’re going through hell, write to find your way forward through it. If things are looking up, write to preserve this moment for some future day when you’ll need a reminder of happier times. If you’re tired, write to purge yourself of the thoughts keeping you up at night. If you’re depressed, write to remind yourself that even at your worst, you are still capable of creating something, of moving forward, even if it’s just one word and one step at a time.

Eventually, those words will add up to a poem, a story, or a entire book. And those steps will take you miles away from where you are now, though you won’t notice until you stop one day, look back, and finally realize just how far you’ve come.

Just keep putting one foot—and one word—after another.

I can’t write your story for you—but I’ll keep writing if you will. In the meantime, if you’d like to check out some other stuff I wrote, head on over to Hosted Games to play the first chapter of The Harbinger’s Head for free, or check out the demo of The Dragon’s Last Flight over on itch.io.