The Writer’s Block: Virus Edition
By: Elle Haywood
Tags: Film Critic, Film Festivals, Pandemic Diaries, Journalism, Writers Block

My Last In-Person Festival — the 2020 Berlinale. Copyright: Elle Haywood

I doubt there is a single person out there who feels wholly comfortable with the confrontation of a blank page, be it the white glare of a notebook, or the impatient flashing insertion line of a word document. During the early days of lockdown, I began to find my mind drifting from the blank page to the blank wall in despair and I let go of the prospect of anything literate being typed up. As a burgeoning film critic, the closure of cinemas and rolling up of the film festival red carpets was worrisome. Unsurprisingly there was a brief twitter calamity (when isn’t there) about the lack of films entering the market and the disruption of the international circuit. However, we were soon greeted by the familiar deliverance of screeners from PR’s and muttering speculations of how a virtual festival would work. Perhaps it sounds like a dream to some, getting to write 24/7 from the comfort of your room and cheap home coffee with films being dispensed at your fingertips. For many of others, it was a nightmare and incidentally added fuel to the dreaded furnace of writer’s block.

Film festivals are manic, crowded, caffeine-injected spectacles that are just as addictive as getting your first tattoo. Nothing really compares to the voluntary scheduling of sleep deprivation, legging it between screenings gripping a €1,39 paper cup of espresso and hogging all the cafe tables with your laptops and illegible scrawlings. But it’s home. This is not a word against the new virtual arenas that film festivals are entering, but more of a melancholy reminiscence of missing out on collective experiences and new discoveries in exciting cities. Somehow this environment really fuels you as a film writer, as you are engaged in such insightful discussions of comparing films and directors while carving out your own take on a new release. With all of that swept away, so is your motivation. I don’t think we expected that most of 2020 was going to be spent on eagle-eyeing emails for publicity releases and trying to find anywhere to write while sites scramble for financial relief funds. As travel slowed to halt and the schedule of zoom calls began, the prospect of having to engage with laptop screens all the time felt daunting and exhausting.

The arts industry is a brutal landscape to break into, especially when you choose to circumnavigate traditional ladder-climbing routes, and you lack the right contacts to hustle your way in. It’s even harder when just as you envisage you might get your big break at a bigger publication or specialist site, and then an unexpected, long-term virus hits. Each tentative pitch email sent feels more hollow than the last, as you hold onto hope for a few days, and then accept you won’t get any response, not even a polite decline. It’s hard not to question your abilities, effortlessly attempting to adapt your style of writing to suit a certain website or magazine, and whiling away wondering what line you wrote that lost you your shot. My computer screen is littered with pink post-it notes with interesting ideas and unique takes scrawled on, begging to be shaped into a seamless novel. But during the hunt for a publication for your article, you discover the film had already been covered, or the commissioning editor is renowned for ghosting new writers. You begin to pick at the wallpaper inside of you, as the creativity sinks down and you turn your attention to another way to pay the bills. This is depressive, but it’s also the harsh nature of being a writer and navigating the digital world of publishing when the money pots of freelancer budgets lay barren.

What you hold onto is the feeling when an article is commissioned, and they empathise with your rough edges of pitching and small bylines but are willing to help you craft your voice. You also find bittersweet gratitude when you are greeted with an email that cannot accept your pitch because of a specified reason but had the dignity to respond to the effort and emotion put into your pitch. You bang your head on the desk at every stilted sentence and shout the paragraphs back at yourself until they are no longer convoluted word vomit. Finally, you emerge from the dust, and it feels like a relief, and despite the lack of dignity; there is pride in having forged ahead. For now, we have to find different homes for our writing. Smaller film blogs who have no budget but support new writings and give them invaluable editorial advice have been our saviours, wanting for our words to just be read. Sometimes, it’s sites such as Medium or Vocal, as we iron out the creases and hope others find solace or comfort in our struggles and successes. It’s hard for publications large and small. It’s forced writers from all different disciplines to confront and engage with the way they write, what environment and locations feel most comfortable, and accept that a whole week may feel like an eternal roadblock at the moment, but the barricades will come down. We have to keep supporting each other, sharing and championing the work of writers we love and sites that are fighting to keep their voices.

This piece has in a way, helped with my own writer’s block. While this is a tangle of words free-flowing at 1 am, I’m slowly climbing back onto the page and working out what comes next. For now, I’m just going to daydream about the days of artisan coffee and a chilly morning breeze on a cobblestone street with people rushing by, as I type away alone in my room. I’m going to keep writing, and hoping.