(7 min read.) We are writing in hard times. It’s 2024. The dog is barking, the oceans are boiling, fascism is gnawing on our doorknob, income disparity hasn’t been this bad since before the French Revolution, low-rise jeans are back, and there are at least three genocides happening right now (with varying degrees of media coverage.) In the face of all this, HOW COULD WRITING MATTER? Who cares if you hit your word count or finish your little poem or whatever?
Writing in hard times actually matters, for you and for me.
I don’t mean “writing in hard times matters because it feels good,” although that spark of joy is important too. The super-acclaimed author Alice Walker (link if you don’t know) knows a little something about hard times and she once said: “Any happiness you get you’ve got to make yourself.” Writing can help with that.
But it can also help in other, practical ways.
Here are a few reasons to commit to writing in hard times. You can write for tomorrow, for money, to inspire, for new solutions, for connection, for momentum, or for chaos!
Write in hard times for Tomorrow.
When things are bad, the majority of the world often tries to continue on as though it’s all fine. There can be a lot of economic and social pressure to hide hard truths from each other. Sometimes we hide ‘em from ourselves, too. Societies (and people and families and communities) do all that to keep going, even if the status quo is destructive. When you write, you can tell the truth. For yourself and for everyone else alive right now (which can combat gaslighting or toxic positivity) but also for the people yet to come. Put it down in black and white; the facts and the feelings of what it’s like to be here. Let it be real. Your story can be fiction or non-fiction. Tell this moment’s historical truth the way it feels most honest for you, whether that’s with blow-by-blow realism or big wild metaphors. What would you write, if you felt that explaining today to tomorrow was your job? Leo Tolstoy pretty much nailed it, as have Kurt Vonnegut, Toni Morrison, and many other vital writers who we depend on to tell us the stories of where we came from. Why not try to be that ancestor for the people yet to come? (You won’t be the only person doing this, but you will be the only person who sees exactly what you see from your unique perspective and position. Plus, we need numbers.)
Write in hard times for Money.
Let’s get nuts-and-bolts. Write for cash and donate the money. Why not approach writing like a straight-up community service fundraiser? You might not make a million dollars, but every buck is a buck. Save a rainforest tree. Feed a child. Support a candidate or a particular local effort for change. Writing doesn’t just move minds, it moves wallets. Get into it. If you can’t land a professional writing gig or a book deal that pays you steady, throw something you’ve written onto the internet as a self-published .pdf or eBook to grab a little extra cash you can donate. Use a pen name if you don’t want your boss knowing that you write weird poetry to support community mutual aid. Writing in hard times isn’t just for vibes or expression; it can save lives by actively redistributing capital. Capture your daydreams and make ’em a fundraiser.
Write in hard times to Inspire.
Making cultural or social change by writing is not a new idea. It’s not my idea. It’s an idea practiced by writers all the way back to Sappho. Whether you are telling a silenced truth to prove its existence, making peace feel possible by showing a utopian future, or helping people realize they need to get to the polls and vote, writing can be activism on the page. Putting a vital idea into a form that can be seen, felt, and shared can change the world. Inspire the change you want to see. If you need ten thousand examples of this, Google it.
Write in hard times for New Solutions.
New problems (tiny or massive) require new solutions. New solutions demand new ways of thinking. Writing builds ’em. This ain’t a metaphor; it’s literal truth. When you write, you physically create new neural connections between different parts of your brain. Researchers are still solving the puzzle of exactly why or how, but based on fMRI scans it looks like the more frequently you engage in creative writing, the more easily several disparate areas of your brain can communicate and collaborate with each other (science fact.) The technical terms are “bilateral activation” and “interhemispheric communication,” which is what they call it when the right and left halves of the brain wake up and talk to each other. You can forget all those details right now, if you like. But what may be useful to remember is that scientists who scanned people’s brains while they wrote saw evidence that creative writing is like a teambuilding exercise for the brain. After you write, the parts of the brain can work together more easily on other tasks. Writing (journal, fiction, essay, whatever) lowkey powers-up your overall thinking. Kinda wild, but useful for dealing with catastrophes! When the poop is hitting the scoop in this world, you’ll be distracted and exhausted by the mess. If you want to solve the problem at hand, any extra available cognitive power you can rustle up will be a gift. If the brain isn’t braining, might wanna pick up a pen. (Writing by hand seems to offer the biggest neural boost, but dictation or typing still help if they’re a better fit for your access needs.) Unlike coffee or a yoga class or therapy, writing is free and available to you 24/7 and you don’t have to premeditate or arrange it; just do it. Try it, enjoy some neural benefits, and when you start to feel more connected: use that cognitive lift to help you survive a globally horrendous moment with the clever use of your supercharged brain that’s up to the challenge. You don’t have to believe that what you’re writing will save the world. Even if your writing sucks, putting words together can help you do what you need to do. With your freshly re-integrated brain and its new ways of thinking, you may be better able to face the global problems you’re personally tangled up in, or even help solve this mess for (and with) the rest of us.
Write in hard times for Connection.
As long as you’re still alive nothing can actually rob you of your innate ability to connect with others, but trauma sure might can make it feel harder. Tough times may get profoundly isolating. You might feel too exhausted to reach out, or too numb to receive love or friendship. Sound familiar? Try hittin’ the page. Writing is a fundamentally connected and collaborative act, even when you’re completely alone. Ok, look. In any moment when you rearrange the alphabet to mean something, you’re never exactly alone because you’re part of a tradition that’s so much bigger than any one person. You’re connected to all the people who’ve ever created and refined written language. You’re doing something instinctive that’s powerfully (and seemingly uniquely?!) human. Even if you’re just writing a funny limerick or a (messy but heartfelt?) blog post like this one, you’re part of the lineage of all writers, from kindergarteners misspelling their names in crayon to William Shakespeare himself. This practice goes back to when the first Sumerian carved a symbolic line into a rock. Every time you write you leave a mark. Every time you write anything, from a messy-but-heartfelt blog post to a brilliant masterpiece, you’re part of that legacy. Your marks might even live on and reach the future centuries from now. (We’re just now learning how to read the earliest ancient cuneiform; who knows what we will find! For real.) So, writing can remind you of your unshakeable, indestructible connection to ancestors, to fellow travelers by your side, and to the people yet to be born. It’s okay to… actually feel that? When you’re writing in hard times, let the alphabet bond you to the rest of humanity like free, legal, deeply expressive superglue. This is an ancient ritual and you’re part of it. EXTRA CREDIT: Use this superglue to bond others together, too. Let your reader feel connected to you. Create something a community can rally around. Feel the sense of interconnection that lives inside all written language, and spread it.
Write in hard times for Momentum.
Trauma and horror narrow our worldview. They keep us from seeing true, positive possibilities. That leads to hopelessness and to learned helplessness (science fact.) Fight that sh*t by persistently creating. You might not be able to balance the world or the cosmos, but by writing new things in the face of destruction you can balance your own cognitive perception of this distorted hellscape. Unlearn the idea that “this is all we have.” Make space to see that you can create new possibilities. You really can. If it doesn’t feel like it right now, try writing for a while and then see how you feel. Use writing to get yourself out of a freeze and into motion, and let that momentum carry you into doing all the things you know you want to do to help this world be a better place.
Write in hard times for CHAOS.
I’m not talking your vibes or D&D alignment, I’m talking hard facts. Mathematically: your words might not be able to change the world, but there’s a REAL chance they might! When things aren’t going the way you want them to on a global scale, that’s the best time to shake things up. You can’t control or predict who your writing will meet. Once you release words into the world, they can end up anywhere. I know mine have traveled all over the place in some pretty surprising ways. Maybe your story will hit just the right person on just the right day to change their mind and their life. Chaos theory tells us that a tiny butterfly flapping its wings can create a series of ripple effects that eventually cause a huge typhoon storm (science fact.) You’re not specially exempt from that universal law. When you write a few tiny lines, there’s a chance they’ll start something big. So when times are hard, vote for the world you want. Vote for your better world real hard, in writing, as often as you can, and put those words out into this screwed-up sh*tstorm. Sure, it may not matter. But you can’t be sure unless you’ve honestly tried. You might be the butterfly. You might even be the typhoon. The only guarantee is that if you don’t write, your words won’t change a thing.
If you struggle to write in hard times, I do too. But I don’t give up and I hope you won’t either. (If you’re ready to write now, try a quick one-minute writing prompt.)
xo, megan
Or just go home to the blog.
These (hopefully) really quite helpful creative writing tips offer what I’ve learned as an award-winning author who writes a million words a year, and what I’ve learned about supporting others as a private writing coach.
There’s no one way to write. There’s only your way. I hope some of my tactics and ideas can help you find it.
Yup, I’m a writing coach.
I work with folks at all levels of experience and all levels of income. My writers range from unhoused teens living on the streets to C-suite executives who want to up-level their communication. If you want a private coaching session but can’t afford it, email megan@howtowritesomething.com and ask for scholarship info.
curious/confused?: what does a writing coach do (and not do)
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