Coronavirus Lockdown: 9 ways writers can beat boredom

According to Business Insider, one third of the global population is on coronavirus lockdown. From Africa to Europe to Asia, government around the world has ordered a lockdown of their various countries. Schools have been shutdown and public gatherings in places of worship, cinemas, and market places have been banned. All these measures are being put in place to ensure that people stay at home, enforce self-isolation and social distancing, and ensure that the virus does not spread from person to person.

In addition, the stay-at-home rule has compelled people to work from home, which could become very boring and monotonous.

The same applies for writers.

Whether you write for a blog or social media, poetry, fiction or non-fiction, the truth is, doing the same thing over and over again could lead to boredom, and result to laziness and procrastination.

In this post, I will be discussing nine things writers can do to fight boredom during the coronavirus lockdown.

1. DRAW INSPIRATION FROM THE SITUATION.

After the coronavirus lockdown, a number of people will publish their books, narrating their experiences — and that of others. This is because every situation is a writing inspiration. Buffy Andrews said, “writers see the world differently. Every voice we hear, every face we see, every hand we touch could become story fabric.” As a writer, this is the right time to start keeping a journal — if you’ve not already started — or start a blog. Personally, I’m doing a series on Instagram which I tagged #lockdowndiaries. As a writer, what inspiration are you drawing from the coronavirus lockdown?

2) EVALUATE YOURSELF.

The coronavirus lockdown is a period for self-evaluation. Look inwards. Evaluate yourself. Ask yourself crucial questions that can move you to the next phase of your writing journey. Ask questions like:

• where do I see myself in the next 5 years?
• where am I — right now — in my writing journey?
• where do I want to get to?
• what do I need to put in place — now — to get there?

Answer these questions honestly, and start putting things in place to set the ball rolling.

3) PLAN AND RESTRATEGIZE.

Use the coronavirus lockdown to plan your content strategies. Identify what platforms you want to deliver your content. Is it YouTube? Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Or your blog? When you identify the platform, you can plan your content accordingly. The great part about content planning is that you can splinter one content into various forms. For example, you can use a single idea to create video content for YouTube, graphics for Instagram, info-graphics for Twitter, and a detailed long post for Facebook.

After preparing your content, use a content calendar to plan how you would deliver the content on various platforms. You can have a content calendar planned out for the next one week, one month, two months or more to guide you.

4) DEVELOP YOURSELF.

I’m quite sure you don’t intend to come out of this coronavirus lockdown the same way you went into it. Use this time to develop yourself. Learn something new. Try out new writing styles. Look up things you can do to improve your writing. Download apps that can help you to scale up. Enroll for online training.

When I say ‘develop yourself’, I mean do something as simple as watching a YouTube video or doing a Google search. You don’t need to pay tens of thousands of dollars before you can learn something new. With technology, everything you want to learn is at your fingertips — I mean literally. Today, you can learn almost anything at the tap of a finger.

5) PITCH YOURSELF.

Because people are bored from just staying at home, many of them resort to social media, Netflix or any thing online to keep themselves busy. As a writer, you can take advantage of people’s presence online to pitch yourself. What are you all about? What is your message?

Identify your target audience, and where they are (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr etc). Leverage these platforms and the information you must have already gathered to pitch yourself to them. Craft attention-grabbing contents. Deliver value because people are attracted to value. By pitching yourself, you could convert your audience from raving fans to ardent followers, and then, loyal clients.

6) TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.

Find time doing this coronavirus lockdown to take care of yourself. Self-care is the best form of care. Make time for yourself. Take a break. Have fun. Play. Listen to music. Watch a movie. Sleep. Avoid information overload, and if possible observe social media distancing. Taking a break helps to rejuvenate your creative juices. But I must warn you; there is a thin line between self-care and lazing around.

7) WRITE YOUR BOOK.

You know that book you’ve been wanting to write, but you’ve been making excuses and saying, “I don’t have the time?” Well, guess what? Now you have all the time in the world! Leverage the lockdown to start writing your book.

I’ll tell you a little secret that helps me when writing my books. (Thank me later). Start with an outline. Draft an outline, and voila! your book is ready.

8) READ.

Yep, you read that right! Read, read, and read again. The coronavirus lockdown is a period to read all those eBooks you saved on your device, and the hardcopies you have stacked in your bookshelf. Reading and writing are like co-joined twins; you can’t have one without the other. A good writer is first a good reader. So, by all means,read.

9) GROW YOUR WRITING BANK.

If you don’t want to write a book, post on social media, or start a blog during this coronavirus lockdown, your best bet would be to grow your writing bank. Your writing bank is a safe where you store your creative ideas. It could be on your phone’s notebook, Google Keep, Google Docs, or a notepad. Wherever you store your ideas is your writing bank, and you need to constantly refill it.

A writing bank is important because it is what you fall back on when you run out of ideas. You can’t withdraw from an empty bank account, neither can you drink from an empty cup. Hence, you need to grow your writing bank.

As a writer, you cannot afford to lead a routine life, or give in to boredom during this coronavirus lockdown. Instead, keep yourself busy and entertained with one — or a mix — of the nine points I have listed.