Most days, it is difficult to remember why one writes. In the times of this pandemic, one can expand the question to ask, why is it that one does anything at all? At the beginning of the lockdown, a time I remember as being one of overwhelming vertigo, I tentatively proposed on my Facebook page the formation of a lockdown writing community, one that would respond to a prompt sent out in the morning by writing 500 words to be shared by end of the day. Even though, in hindsight I could speak of the many ways in which this was a well thought out plan following in the hallowed footsteps of Shakespeare, Marcus Aurelius, Camus and such, it really wasn’t. It may have been summarily informed by the “Top ten writing habits” of successful novelists and such, but even that is a stretch. Truth be told, I was flailing and needed a set of people with who I could rediscover my bearings. And thus began #writingchallenge and #lockdownwriting. We all began to write, as and when able.
My day began to be structured by two things, cooking and writing. I’d send out a prompt, make and eat lunch, respond to the prompt, read everyone’s pieces over tea, and find that the day was temporarily able to hold together. When I found myself growing banal in my prompts, others from the community sent out cues. Every day, every morning, we thought up new ideas to witness ourselves and others as they struggled to locate this day, this time, this place as built on the experiences, contingencies, memories, happenstances, and serendipities of other such days, times, and places.
I did not want to lose sight of the world either in being so overwhelmed by the point as to give up all activity, or by becoming drawn into the conceit that this is the only moment that matters. All prompts were provocations for joy, sorrow, memory, fantasy, and magic. I began the exercise with a prompt that asked people to write pieces starting with “I thought to myself that hope is….” and ending with “I realized…”. In subsequent days, I asked this community to do many things: to paint themselves a fantasy life scenario with the help of the lyrics of a chosen song; pick a day of the week that they most liked and tell us why by comparing this day a with set of “names, places, animals, and things”; write about the view from their window or balcony; picture a scene and write it like a live-sports commentator; sketch the contours of a dreamscape; respond to the comment, “Tell me something about yourself”.
I’d like to think that people liked this writing challenge.
We bandied together, some of us already familiar with each other as offline friends, acquaintances, and colleagues while others not so much. 500 words was both a demanding proposition and not so much. It allowed me and perhaps others, a structured respite from the world, without having to withdraw from it. And maybe if asked to do it all over again, I would. Not the lockdown, but the writing.
Find below a selection of four pieces that emerged from this project. Click on the icons to open them.
