How to Access Creativity During a Quarantine
Be absolutely accepting of everything. Don’t think that if you can’t work on your novel, business plan, budget, or taxes there is something wrong with you. Remember the last time you were unemployed? Did you learn a new language, yoga poses, sign language, how to make beef Wellington? No. You played Words with Friends, you watched videos of cats slapping dogs, you stared into space and then since there was a mirror in front of you decided to cut your own bangs. Don’t do that. Leave your hair alone. And don’t paint a room or varnish anything. Put down that credit card and cancel the cart full of stretchy, New Age, muted outfits. Walk outside. Get your heart beating harder—if you can’t go outside, access your stairwell and do some flights, anything to get your blood moving, your brain suffused with energy.
Photo by Philipp Berndt
Now — if you have a graph notebook, fill in every other square with a pretty color. Rip that out and find a nice place to hang it. Make a mobile with a stick, thread, and those colored square thingies. Take out that journal you bought even though you have three thousand journals with one word written in them, and write another word. Write a story about going to a party. Have a party with yourself. Recall you don’t like parties and you are a bad guest. Leave the party. Plan your next meal. Write a menu for that meal and force your husband to react to your choice of green vegetables. Force your husband to stop sleeping until noon. When he asks you what to do instead, set him up with the graph paper and some colored pencils.
Chase your cat around the room. Make a mumu out of a potholder and dress your cat up in that creation. Take pictures and send them to your friends. Comb your hair. Make a voodoo doll out of you-know-who and stick pins or toothpicks or possibly squeeze until its head falls off. Make sour milk with vinegar or lemon juice. Smell it. Smells gross, right? Don’t cut your own bangs, shave your head, or bleach anything. Stare into the mirror and notice how many new wrinkles have appeared since you stopped talking to anyone besides your husband and the cat who is now wearing a mumu. Tell your husband he is making you old. Point out he has missed a square on the graph paper. Look at your feet. Are they terrible? Never mind.
—Molly Moynahan, author and writing coach