Escaping reality through fiction

The Arts helping to get through lockdown

If there's one thing that having to stay at home for most of the day every day during the coronavirus pandemic seems to be achieving is a resurgence of popular interest in the arts. While we are all avidly using technology to  substitute our usual habits of socialising, it is the arts that so many of us have turned to. Whether we have tuned in to streaming of music concerts, theatrical performances, the ballet, or virtual tours of museums and galleries, it is the arts that are offering some form of solace, that are helping us to reach inside ourselves as individuals and find ways of both escapism and explanation. 

We need to include literature and writing in this. There has been a surge in book sales across the world as one country after another went into lockdown, with stores reporting a sudden increase in the numbers of sales of physical books while shops remained open. After the lockdown, booksellers that are able to deliver or post books are doing so at a surprisingly high rate, while it is expected that the sale of e-books will also surge. The more intrepid book clubs have set up Zoom meetings so that book lovers can continue their exchanges on their 'book of the month'. Literature is one of the arts that is helping people get through this.

The joy of reading

Reading, of course, is a great way of keeping the mind active and distracted from the worries of what is an extremely difficult situation, one where we are each united with the rest of the world in our anxieties about sickness, survival, our families, our personal finances, the unsettling nature of change and not knowing when all this will end. 

That list goes nowhere to scratch the surface of those whose personal situations are extremely difficult: those with mental illnesses who cannot access easily their usual support systems; those in abusive relationships; those who simply have not got the money to feed their families; those with mobility difficulties who cannot get about their own home without help...the list could go on and on. What about those in war situations? What about those in refugee camps? What about those who live in poverty with no access to washing facilities - so much for those 20 seconds humming 'happy birthday'! And those who live in overcrowded conditions - no social distancing for them even if sick with the virus! 

Anxiety is rife, and reading is one way of freeing the mind from its grip, if only for short periods. Reading allows the mind to roam widely and freely - across the world, across time and space. Reading also keeps us away from the virtual reality that is social media with all its pressures, doom, gloom and 'fake news'.

In particular, reading fiction helps us to withdraw from the prison that our four walls have become and, where we are surrounded at close quarters by the rest of the family, gives as an opportunity for solitary thinking, a break where we can recharge our mental batteries. Equally, if we live alone, fiction introduces us and brings us into intimate contact with others in the safe space that is the mind. We can select books that take us to places we are unlikely ever to visit - outer space, for example, or 20,000 leagues under the sea - or that are light and bright and can transport us to a happier place than perhaps we find ourselves in at the moment. 

Writing in lockdown

So what about writing? It's not as if overnight any of us is going to write that novel that speaks of the themes of the deadly coronavirus, quarantine, isolation, death and suffering in all the various incarnations of these. Writing a novel takes time and, hopefully, we will long be out of this situation by the time our novels are ready to head for the printing press. If any of us writes one.

I guess that is why I have taken to short stories. Not that these are particularly easy to write - a good short story is its own literary masterpiece, and I am nowhere near skilled enough to write one of those. But at least with a short story I get a chance to delve into the world of a fictional character that I have created. I can let out whatever anxiety is lurking about at the time. I can let my mind work out sticky problems by relating these to fictional characters. I can exercise my imagination and simply ask, what if? The short story, like the poem, can take one theme, one person, add the question 'what if' and create a brief moment of escape for my readers. 

For me, it allows me to escape my own reality for a while, and then leaves me a sense of satisfaction that I think you only get when you've created something new, something that has never existed before, but because it is written, has a greater degree of permanence than any of us mere  humans might have. And if I get it right, with any luck, it connects with others. 

There are many themes that are arising for us during this lockdown. Isolation is one. Imprisonment is another. Loss of control of our lives is a third. Unexpected change is yet another. I am coming to really understand just how important a role in helping prisoners tap into their feelings and their creativity that writing has, and how great a contribution creative writing classes in prisons can make to help prisoners avoid re-offending in future. I think this is a theme I might come back to in another post.

Simply Stories

Today's Simply Stories contribution came from me asking the usual 'what if' and applying it to trying to see life from someone else's perspective. What if you loved music but because of a life-changing event, you were disengaged from making music and thought you'd never ever be yourself because you could not make music again? What if someone unexpected turned up and changed your mind? Quite a simple idea and a useful exercise in drafting a story. Find the link on the right hand side to 'All that Jazz' and see what you think. Then, have a go, write your own lockdown story and please, share it here by sending it through to me at my email address: 

jackiegirl@hotmail.co.uk