Use Your Time During the Pandemic to Write More Consistently, Connect With Your Readers and Become More Involved in Your Writing Community

Use your home bound hours to increase content production, enhance your relationships with your readers and your fellow writers.

It’s no secret that in the previous few weeks, our world has changed drastically. We worry about things we didn’t before, like wondering if food provisions will hold out for the duration, how to keep our children healthy and safe from contagion and even where to find toilet paper.

For writers, the pandemic has provided some benefits along with increased challenges. For those with day jobs, the shelter in place orders that have come in many states, including Illinois where I live, means added hours to produce new work for many writers.

For some, it also brings added hardship because of being forced to take leave without pay. For writers with families used to solitude during the day, the shelter at home orders may have made things more difficult, as the entire family is forced to exist and carry out their daily activities in one space.

The increasing number of businesses closed due to the pandemic has also led to a huge increase in the amount of content that is being published. Big companies used to interacting with customers on a face to face basis are now scrambling to maintain these relationships through content marketing.

For example, as many big-tech conferences such as IBM’s Think, SXSW, and Adobe Summit are being canceled due to COVID-19 concerns, companies are searching for ways to maintain contact with customers and generate new leads as well as keep the upper hand in regard to their competition. So marketers are turning to online content to shore up their weakened promotional strategy.

With every company that relies on in person presence to conduct business taking a hit due to the pandemic, the need to switch to online content strategies to boost their presence and connect with their customers and potential customers is creating a flood of new copy. Combined with all the workers who are on unpaid leave for perhaps months who are turning to online writing as a way of generating new income, the online market has been inundated with a constant flow of new content.

As competitive as the digital writing arena was before COVID 19, it has become a figurative shark tank since the outbreak. This means that to be successful, writers need to up the ante both in terms of content generation and their online presence. To do so amidst the changing landscape caused by the coronavirus, writers need to change the way they conduct their writing lives by creating a workable plan and sticking to it.

Daily Structure

While you stay at home looking at all the hours stretching before you, don’t think of them as down time. These are hours you need to take advantage of by producing new work so you can publish often and remain visible amidst all the new content that is flooding the market. But in order to do so you must find ways to structure your days to best take advantage of these hours.

It is easy to just lounge in bed with your computer by your side, ready to be picked up when the mood strikes you. Doing this however, makes writing something more of a whim than a planned activity which you intend to be your business.

Creating a schedule that approximates your regular work schedule, getting up at a set time, showering and getting dressed and moving to a dedicated work space will go a long way to help you have a productive work day.

If you have a family, it’s also important to make sure they have a schedule, or that they at least respect the schedule you set up for yourself. Make sure that children who are supposed to be learning online are doing so. If you need to supervise some of these activities try to limit it to only what is absolutely necessary.

Set up a sticker chart or other reinforcement system so that you are not constantly needed to keep your children on task. If you have a spouse who does not want to create a formal structure for their day, make sure they do not interrupt yours. Give them set times that you will take a break when you can interact with them. Setting up meals as family time helps a lot of people maintain an at home work schedule while still remaining available to their family,

Set Up a “Go To” List of Writers to Help Improve Your Skills

With the increased competition it’s even more important now to improve your writing skills and knowledge of topics like self promotion and marketing. As you read, create a “goto” list of other writers whose work you find inspiring. You can add any writer who provides useful information that can help further your goals as a writer. This might include writers who:

• Are well known in your area of interest
• Provide good advice and strategies for improving your writing skills
• Provide techniques for promoting your work
• Provide strategies for generating topics to write about
• Write about how to deal with the various stressors related to being a writer
• Describe how to attract and keep new readers
• Regularly list the most up to date markets and opportunities for writers

Your list can include writers who provide information about any skills or topics that you want to learn more about and be kept up to date on. Make sure to sign up for newsletters, updates or notifications. if offered so you will know when they come out with something new.

Deciding What to Write About

As always, your success will in large part be determined by what you write about. This is even more important in the current circumstances which has led to an over saturated content market.

Your content should not just be interesting. There is plenty of interesting content out there. Your articles should answer important questions that many of your readers have, solve common problems in a unique way, provide information that is practical, useful and not commonly found elsewhere, or present an experience or concern that your readers can identify with which is told in a way that elicits strong emotions.

While writing skill will obviously contribute to this as will creating clean copy, quality writing alone is not enough to keep readers returning to your work if it is just moderately interesting. In these times, people are seeking specific information about how to get through this crisis, where to find the most up to date facts, and how to cope with an increasingly anxiety provoking situation. As part of this, they are often looking for content that grabs them to the point they can distract from the stessors of today’s world.

That being said, be careful about writing specific coronavirus related articles that include reports of facts found elsewhere. Unless you are a medical professional who specializes in viral infections, contagious diseases and/or public health or the like, it’s best to leave the specifics to the experts.

That’s not to say you can’t include information about resources that would help readers find the information they are looking for. But many sites, including Medium, are carefully reviewing all COVID 19 related content, and deleting that which could be cause for concern, including someone providing inaccurate information or trying to gain readers by sensationalizing the topic.

(Note: Please be responsible when writing about the current pandemic as there are a lot of people who are very frightened and many read things on the internet searching for optimistic news. Content that focuses on the more troubling aspects of the outbreak or that exaggerates the reality for self serving purposes can severely escalate the anxiety that many people are now experiencing.)

In addition to creating content that answers questions or addresses concerns in the here and now, you can also use the extra time at home to establish a pipeline with content that is less timely and more universal, scheduling it for publication in the coming days or saving it for days when your writing isn’t coming as easily. This will make sure that even on slow writing days, you have something that you can publish early in the day to remain visible and allow your readers to connect with you.

Interacting With Your Readers

We all try to pay attention to the comments that people make on our work. But there are times when we are in the zone and our writing is flowing. No one wants to interrupt those periods when writing comes easy instead of feeling like pulling teeth.

But while it’s now more important than ever to produce new content consistently and frequently, it’s equally important to ensure that it is read. A big part of this is connecting with your readers. There are just too many shiny new objects out there in the form of new writers that are vying for your readers attention. This is even the case for readers who regularly read your work.

The best way to make sure your readers are still engaging with your work is to create a dialogue with them. Make sure you are writing content that speaks to what your readers most want to know about. Include personal anecdotes to further connect with your audience, integrating them into the overall topic. This will encourage them to comment with their own experiences and their perception of the topic.

Set notifications to alert you when you have comments coming in. Most social media and content writing platforms have settings you can turn on that will send a notification when someone has commented on something you’ve written. Although this can become a bit distracting when you are focused on your work, with the large amount of new content flooding the market now, it is imperative to stay in touch with your readers when there is more competition than ever before.

Be sure to reply to each comment that you receive and do so as soon as possible. This will increase the likelihood that they will respond back, thereby establishing a conversation. This sets up a sense of connection which will enhance the reader’s desire to return to your work in the future.

Support Other Writers by Reading, Commenting and Sharing

While we all know how important it is to read the work of others, this is even more important now. Not only does this inform our own writing by giving us ideas and new ways of thinking about things, it gives an opportunity to engage with other writers around their work. This creates solidarity among writers who have similar interests, write in the same area and creates support for writers who do this as a profession not just out of necessity due to the current health crises.

During this time, we can support each other each day by reading and commenting on other writer’s work. We need to make a bigger effort to do this, even as we are trying to increase our frequency of publishing.

It can be easy to get lost in writing every day, especially with so many hours that we are stuck in our homes. Becoming immersed in what we are working on can serve as an escape from the loneliness and/or anxiety that we may be feeling as well as give us a sense of purpose in a world that has been turned on its head.

But ultimately when we are not involved in our writing, the loneliness and sense of separation from others will be felt once more. One way of keeping this at bay when in person contact is limited, is to make sure you are involved with online communities. Touching base with the members of your groups and feeling as if you are a part of something can help you maintain a positive mood, and feel more motivated and inspired to write.

A good way to participate in your community is to share information that members of your network would find interesting and helpful. If you find a great writer who has provided a useful resource that might benefit one or more of your networks, make sure to share it.

This will not only help other writers, but it will encourage others to do likewise setting up a system where your groups become useful sources of skills and information, keeping everyone up to date with recent writing related news. Sharing resources with others will also establish good will, show that you are interested in more than just getting people to read your work and that you value being able to contribute to your community.

You can support members of your groups more directly by sharing their work on your social media pages and helping to promote their special projects. This will likely increase the chance that they will do likewise, which can result in more engagement for these articles since often people are more likely to read something recommended by someone other than the person who wrote it.

Social support is one of the most powerful coping mechanisms for all types of stress. The more we contribute to our writing communities during this pandemic the better we all will be able to come through it. We will also have something positive to take away from it.

Take Away

Given the new atmosphere brought about by shelter in place orders in many locations, which has increased the competition for readers attention, writers cannot approach their trade in a less than “all in” manner. This means setting up your writing life in a way that encourages and increases success. Along with structuring your time and environment, making sure you are rigorous about improving your skills, producing new content regularly, connecting with your readers and participating in your writing communities to support your fellow writers will help you thrive in these difficult times.

Before you go, a couple of questions for you:

What kind of writing space have you created for yourself? Share a description and picture of your work space in the comments.

How are you using your networks and communities to help you cope professionally and personally with this pandemic?

Natalie Frank has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and often writes op-eds about health related current events. She is an editor for The Partnered Pen & One Table, One World and is Editor in Chief for Promposity & Mental Gecko, both of which she created. She is also the Managing Editor for Novellas and Serials at LVP Publications. Her collection of poetry, Disguised I Breathe, In Love I Hold, can be found here on Amazon.

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