Amy Sackville, Director of Creative Writing at the School of English, has written an article for the Guardian exploring the challenges of writing during the COVID-19 lockdown.
From her inability to take up new hobbies or begin new projects the lockdown lifestyle continued to frustrate Amy when it came writing.
She said: ‘Writing comes out of a kind of distraction. I am used to a form of procrastination that is otiose and seemingly directionless: casting about, reading, note-taking, until an agitation sets in and a sense of urgency, from book to notebook to another book and back and there is the sensation of connection, or the possibility of connection, maddening and lively enough for something – an image, a sentence – to emerge while I am not looking.’
The distraction of reading news articles, tweets and statistics was also cited as being a stumbling block for Amy’s creativity, as reading books usually motivates her to work. Meanwhile, a lack of inspiration due to being restricted within her home was also a major challenge, with Amy asking, ‘How can I calibrate myself to the world without being out in it?’
The article also acknowledged how Amy has worked to respond, support, adapt and plan in her academic role during the COVID-19 pandemic, recognising that ‘the last months have been the busiest I’ve known’.
The full article, ‘I am not reading. I am not writing. This is not normal’ is available to read on the Guardian’s website: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/14/writer-lockdown-diary-amy-sackville-creative-writing
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