10 Reasons To Be Less Productive During A Pandemic
1. You fear dying.
Especially if you’re as much of a hypochondriac as I am. When I woke up with a headache, sore throat, and the dreaded DRY COUGH a couple of weeks ago, I feared the worst. I spent the next two days drinking lots of fluids, taking my (resolutely normal) temperature, and checking that I had my beneficiaries up to date.
I found and despaired over my utterly out-of-date will, and wondered if emails to family about what I really wanted were advisable, given the dubious legal validity of Facebook messages. Fortunately, I decided I should probably at least run a fever before I got that dramatic.
In terms of writing, I stopped work on a first draft in order to vastly speed up production on a book that was close to release. I feared it would die on my computer and never see the light of day, because my son thinks I write mommy porn (sadly, no, it’s women’s fiction).
Technically, getting that book out counts as increased productivity, but since I hadn’t yet lined up any marketing to go along with it, it should more accurately be described as stupid productivity. However, checking that item off the things-to-do-before-I-die list still made me feel better.
In the vast scheme of things going on right now, I find it hard to care if this book is bombing out of the gate. (That’s kind of a tradition for me, anyway.) So at least this pandemic is good for something.
2. You fear loved ones dying.
In my case, this expresses itself in sweet gestures such as badgering my adult son to get a refill on his inhaler for God’s sake and how many times does he have to hear that? Does he WANT to die? Since he’s an essential worker, I also get to lovingly harass him to wear a mask at work. Among his macho colleagues, however, the only way he’s willing to do something that wussy is by drawing teeth on it so he looks like a Batman villain. And this he has literally done, but I suspect he still leaves it stuffed in his pocket.
Then there’s nagging my elderly parents to stay in the house and stop hobnobbing with their neighbors, random friends traveling through Florida, and everybody at Wal-Mart on a Sunday afternoon because Dad thinks they might have a different kind of CD he’s suddenly decided he must have. (They don’t.)
The way I see it, the only good thing about people being forced to die alone in this pandemic is that I’ll be better able to resist yelling “I TOLD YOU SO!” over an iPad being held by a nurse.
3. You must get a full night’s sleep, so your immune system will be in tip top shape.
If you’re like me, you must also sit quietly in the sun, so you can absorb Vitamin D. You must also continue your long practice of failing to social distance from your cats as you sit with your morning coffee.
By now, you can tell there are no young children in my home. God bless those of you who have suddenly become home school teachers, or worse, home school teachers AND online teachers. If you’re trying to teach or simply survive your own or anyone else’s kids, that’s worth at least eight of these excuses.
In fact, you don’t need any excuses. Just hang in there.
4. You have to analyze all the weird dreams you’re suddenly remembering because you’re getting a full night’s sleep.
Now I wake up remembering all sorts of crazy stuff, like lying between my elderly parents in their king-sized bed in their home in Florida. We were just lying there quietly on their excellent mattress, being very, very comfortable, while a lovely fresh breeze blew in from the window. In real life, they never open that window, and nobody except my mom would ever be comfortable next to my dad’s epic snoring and restless legs.
As I woke from this vivid dream one morning, at first it seemed wonderfully reassuring. It was a comforting sign that death wouldn’t be so bad. It wouldn’t separate me from my loved ones. Then I started wondering what the hell I was doing there. That quickly turned into OH MY GOD, DOES THIS MEAN I’M GOING TO DIE, TOO?
5. You need to worry about finances.
If not yours, somebody’s. My stepdaughter and her husband have no work now, thanks to the virus. So there are only three grandkids’ food and housing to worry about because of that. And I’d just hit a goal in my retirement planning that I was feeling pretty smug about. Ha ha ha ha ha.
6. You need to call or be called by everyone, just in case.
Like a lot of writers, I am no fan of the telephone. Is it just me, or can there be a special banality to these conversations during a pandemic? Then there’s that special horror, the video call, which requires me to figure out new technology, wash my hair, put on some make-up and real clothing, tidy up the background, and cope with the existential crisis of seeing my own haggard face on the monitor.
7. You must bake bread.
I’ve made naan three times already, despite not being able to find yeast in the store. In my refrigerator, I found a jar that said it expired in 2016. I was about to dump it when a vague memory of refilling it from the bulk bins at the food coop tickled my brain. (Since it still worked, apparently I did.) While agonizing over this, I spent significant time researching various methods for making sourdough. As if I really needed to bring another living thing that needs to be fed every day into this experience.
Then there’s the time spent cleaning up the flour that gets on everything. Why write when you can instead work on removing a brand-new layer of kitchen floor paste?
8. You must eat the bread you just baked. Also, everything else.
I gave up sweets for Lent, but last week I decided I’d had to give up church itself for Lent, and that was enough. Out came the Girl Scout cookies. And it would be a crime not to turn those brown bananas into banana bread.
9. You have to sanitize stuff.
I sometimes try to rationalize the lazy time I spend sitting around in the sun or with the cats as time when I can subconsciously work out plot and character points in my WIP. (That’s right, it’s not just time spent being alive, or rage-tweeting about politics on my phone.)
But the time I spend wiping down tea kettles and door knobs and light switches and incoming groceries never seems to contribute to my work in progress. Instead, I imagine scenes of wiping down tea kettles and door knobs and light switches and groceries in a future pandemic novel.
Which raises a troubling issue: How will we survive the looming pandemic of pandemic novels?
10. You need to watch things.
When I got sick, I discovered I really didn’t want to die before re-watching my old Jane Austen DVDs. (Before that, I made sure to go out and see the new Emma two days before the theaters closed. Priorities, people!)
Watching old favorites can be dangerous, though. When I got to When Harry Met Sally, I found Harry really, really irritating. Would that relationship survive five years of normal marriage, let alone a pandemic?
Will we all now begin to evaluate relationships for their sheltering-at-home potential? This could really shake up the world of romance. “I’m sorry, Lance. I know you’re a rich and handsome ER doctor whose passionate kisses makes my toes curl, but it’s just not worth the risk you’ll someday bring a deadly virus home on your socks. I need to marry someone who can work from home.”
So, what are your excuses for being less productive?
And no, we don’t want to hear about how you’re actually being just as productive as always, or just wrote King Lear. This is no time to make complete strangers want to kill you.
—
Sandra Hutchison is the author of THE AWFUL MESS and its brand-new sequel THE COMPLETE DISASTER, as well as of THE RIBS AND THIGH BONES OF DESIRE, BARDWELL’S FOLLY, and DISORGANIZE ME. She is currently finishing a third novel in the Lawson series, THE UTTER CATASTROPHE.
Lawson, New Hampshire opened its heart to a scandalous unwed mother in THE AWFUL MESS, but will it welcome the arrival of a Somali Bantu refugee family? Local tensions rise, especially after an accidental shooting involving local policeman Winslow Jennings.
That traumatic event will challenge Winslow’s own peace of mind, his marriage, and his relationship with a little boy who still doesn’t know about his biological father. Can he protect his family without losing his idea of himself?
Meanwhile, a wealthy newcomer is trying to dislodge Annie Soper from her food pantry leadership, apparently for the crime of being too fat, even as Annie navigates an unexpected romance with a Scottish ex-pat. Can she learn to trust again after a lifetime of seeing that trust cruelly broken?
Escape to a small New Hampshire town threatened by new fractures, but also grounded by a long tradition of loving their neighbors as themselves
(You can read a free prequel to this series by joining Sandy’s mailing list at SheerHubris.com.)
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
