In 1931 Polonskaya gave up the practice of medicine to become a full-time writer, focusing on prose sketches; the turn from creative writing to journalism was common among women poets at the time, for example her friend Maria Shkapskaya. Towards the end of the decade "she was suffering from a worrisome heart condition, which interfered with her work and contributed to recurring bouts of despair," but shortly after the German invasion of Russia she and her family had to leave Leningrad for the Urals, first in Polazna and then (from November 1942) in Molotov. During this period she worked for a time as a school doctor, but on her return to Leningrad in 1944 she became once again a full-time writer.