I’m in lockdown again – and this time it’s making me weird. As the deadline for my third book approaches, as years of unmanaged ADHD compound into complete mental paralysis and I find myself deleting more words than I write, I’ve turned off my phone and unplugged my modem to give writing my fullest attention. It’s not working out.
This isn’t like 2020, when you couldn’t get through an ad break or cursory scroll without being bombarded with mentions of these “unprecedented times” or how “we’re all in this together”. There’s no solidarity with my neighbours, no pity from interstate, no frantic and nervous refresh on the Covid Live website. It’s just me in my little apartment and half a dozen fictional characters for company.
I’ve never seen The Shining , but I’m pretty sure Jack Nicholson and a couple of creepy twins are due down my hallway any minute now. Credit: Robin Cowcher A lot of writers go on off-grid writing retreats, but there’s something not quite right about living in a locked-door bubble in the inner north, still aware of the rest of the world but banned from engaging with it. I can hear my neighbours’ kids having meltdowns in the garage, smell a barbecue somewhere, feel my floors shudder under someone else’s spin cycle, all while I’m both far away and right where I’ve always been.
With no day job to show up to, time warps, and soon I begin rising late in the afternoon and drinking coffee at midnight. The longer I’m alone.
