Writing motivation during pandemics
Shakespeare is arguably the most famous writer that has ever been. He also lived at a time and place that was more covered up with plagues and pandemics than has ever been seen in recorded history:
Bubonic plague, which had a 50% survival rate if you were lucky and generally a person was dead within 3 days of contracting the disease.
Typhus
Cholera
Malaria
Incurable syphilis
Smallpox (even the young queen Elizabeth got it).
References to various plagues and illnesses and diseases are riddled throughout Shakespeare’s writings.
A common expression used during this time was: A pox on ye!
This was quite literally, with words, trying to infect, or wishing upon, the other person smallpox which was quite deadly and even if the person survived smallpox then for the rest of their lives they would have significant pocks on their faces, craters, showing that they did have the smallpox at one time.
Queen Elizabeth for the rest of her life wore extremely heavy makeup on her face to try to cover up and fill in the smallpox scars she bore. Unfortunately what was used as makeup back then had a lead base to it, which was quite unhealthy in and of itself also.
This epithet, a pox on ye! by its very meaning was a lot stronger and deadlier thing to say to someone then today’s expression of “f ” you! “F” you seems quite lame and comparison. Nothing like wishing your rival had an incurable disease, eh?
Speaking of the cures being almost as bad as the disease itself, syphilis at the time of Shakespeare is a good example of that. You know how often you have heard people say “don’t eat such and such fish because it has ex parts per million of mercury” in it? People in the Elizabethan era would ingest mercury, straight up mercury, in an attempt to cure syphilis. Hello, mercury poisoning.
List Mercury poisoning symptoms here
We’ve already gone over the symptoms of the bubonic plague – typhus was almost as bad.
List typhus history and symptoms here
Then there was malaria at the same time. London had extensive marshes off the Thames River which bred clouds of mosquitoes that were infected with malaria.
Not e: how was malaria treated back then?
You can imagine that at some point early on Shakespeare had to ask himself am I going to cringe or am I going to live?
That is one of the absolutely fabulous things about the writer’s life, is that very little equipment is required to get the job done. Just get me some time and a means to get down my thoughts and I can be at my business. Shakespeare also had his play seasons frequently interrupted or canceled because of plagues, or else they would have to take their shows out into the countryside towns for tour because the large cities were so full of pestilence and theaters had to be shut down. Obviously he didn’t let any of this significantly affect his output. And we are so grateful that he didn’t. What about us? Living in a time where things are closed and restricted and so uncertain, are we allowing this time to restrict us or free us?
It is such an easy thing to do to pick a simple writing exercise such as the writing prompt I remember and then start writing for a timed 10 minutes. That could be done just about anywhere, couldn’t it? Right now I am outputting this text directly into Google docs on the web. It boggles the mind to think what Shakespeare could have done with this kind of streamlined production ease. He scribbled things out on parchment (which was not a common thing like our paper is), and used a quill pen that had to be dipped constantly in ink in order to keep letters appearing on the page. Then if you were going to write at night you had to make sure that you had enough candles and ways to light them and that you weren’t writing in a place where candles were likely to get knocked over or blown out at a moment’s notice. Then once you had finished what you were doing, let’s take an example of a short poem being the most simple, simplest, then Shakespeare had to get this output to whomever was going to publish it, and wait upon the publication schedule, whatever that might have been. And each page had to be guarded, so to speak, because who at such a poor scrivener scribbling level, even at Shakespeare’s level, had the wherewithal to get their output copied out and stored somewhere securely before it was published?
So those were just a few of the technical challenges that Shakespeare had during his times that we don’t have at all. In contrast to his writing and publishing process, we live in an age of miracles.
Along those same lines, clearly Shakespeare didn’t wait for a miracle to get motivated – to get done, done. He didn’t wait for a vaccine, there was no such thing. He didn’t wait for the all-clear to be sounded. He didn’t wait for things to be safe. In fact, a strong case could be made that great writing is unsafe writing. Risks are taken along many fronts. Of course all of this is up to us as individual choice. Like Shakespeare, I choose output. I choose now, I choose today. Life is extremely uncertain even in the best of times.
We as writers hope for the best, hope that our writings may ring down the changes of time, even unto the level of Shakespeare’s writings. That can only happen one way, and that is by writing, writing during plagues and pandemics and upsets and upheavals and downsizing and whatever challenges may come upon us at any time.
There is no guarantee for anything. But as writers we have a better chance than anyone of our creative output being preserved, or at the very least, being distributed, and possibly making some person’s life better by what we have done.
There is a strong argument that can be made that what we should be living for is to give to people, to make a difference in their lives with what we are giving. That doesn’t necessarily mean that what we are giving is all “lala,” but I would hope that always, at some level what we were writing was inspirational to whoever was reading it.
Inspiration comes in many different forms and in many different emotional hues but we as writers need to continue to be inspired to write, motivated to write, during these times, those times about past times, about the present, about the future about whatever we decide.
Just think of the enormous freedom of conceiving and then getting that out in such an easy flow as we have now as compared to the time of Shakespeare. let that be inspiring for you, let that motivate you.
Just think about the writers who were able to do so much during such horrifying and trying times. Do we have the least excuse, compared to them, to not be giving our all?
In times of trouble are the very best times
Instead, this is the time, this now, this right now is the time to be writing. In times of trouble are the very best times to be writing. In times of plagues, in times of pandemics. In times where your voice crying out in the wilderness stands out because it is crying out in the wilderness, not cringing in the wilderness. Stay strong within yourself, stay motivated. Pandemics didn’t put down the writers of Shakespeare’s time. Instead, let these times inspire us.