The Draft

The Best Thing You Can Do Is Keep Going

Don’t worry about being productive right now. Just be aware.

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,

For the life of me, I can’t figure out how to be creative now that I’m suddenly working full-time from home while caring for my kids and supervising their schoolwork. How can I think clearly amid so many distractions? I don’t feel in control of my immediate surroundings, let alone the horrors of the larger world barraging me on the news.

Signed,
Too Harried to Think of a Pseudonym

Dear Harried,

I might not be qualified to answer this particular question. I live alone. I am used to working from my apartment, and my freelance editing jobs have all dried up.

But, like most people my age, I can look back on periods of my life that I don’t know how I managed to survive. In my forties, after I got divorced, I found myself teaching full time, trying to publish another book before I came up for…