The Draft
It’s Okay to Be Irrelevant
Advice for promoting your work in the midst of a pandemic
Welcome to The Draft, an advice column about writing and life from Eileen Pollack, former director of the University of Michigan MFA Program. We’re here to answer your questions about storycraft, writing, and telling the truth.
Have a question? Share it with us.
Dear Draft,
What I write doesn’t have anything to do with the pandemic. Should I even bother sharing my work during such a weird time? It feels so cringe-y to be self-promotional about anything these days, unless you’re sewing masks or working in healthcare.
Signed,
Trying to Be Sensitive
Dear Trying,
Any writer who isn’t covering the pandemic is afraid their work is trivial or irrelevant. I have been able to preserve my sanity by starting a novel I’ve been planning to write for years. Each new sentence kindles the joy I always forget fiction brings me. And yet, I keep needing to convince myself I’m not wasting my time describing the experiences of a fictional girl who lives on her parents’ chicken farm in upstate New York in the early 1970s.
But what else can I do? I’m a writer, so I write. Just because we are confined to our…
