Keeping The Creative Spark Alive

When the news broke that we would be going into Lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic, I lost 4 and a half months of work. I was having anxiety and worry about finances, I was worried about certain bills I had, I was worried about people I had to pay, I was worried about shows I was developing. My mental health was taking a real hit and I was worrying everyday.

I was seeing my mum working as a nurse on the frontline which was also hard to see because the impact of the virus was being witnessed by her first hand and the workload was much harder.

My best friend and sister Sinead was leaving Glasgow to go live with her mum down in Lockerbie. We thought it would be for a couple of weeks. But it was much longer. We were both really worried about how to keep that spark alive. So we made the plan to meet every Friday and give eachother creative tasks.

Fast Forward to today, we are into week 12 of our task giving to eachother!

It has been such a great way to keep positive and it has really helped my mental health. I have also been able to take time to step back and reflect on how busy I usually am and the tasks with Sinead have helped me focus on myself and take time to be creative. Taking time to focus on tasks that ranged from creating a bedroom concert, writing poetry, putting responses to pieces of poetry or reading to name just a few.

Other tasks that have included watching documentaries and giving my opinion, doing movement and exercise, creating new process drama ideas and creating new pieces of drama.

The tasks have also been helpful on a longer term, such as during one week after a conversation on how I was struggling to get a rough skeleton for my show, Sinead brought me a task with a document that helped me get my shows rough skeleton. That task has now been implemented into my other shows and helped me get layouts for my shows.

I was sad when Sinead went faraway as she was going out of the city but it has been great giving her tasks similar to mine. We both have got to know what we like and don’t like. We have seen what tasks are great to continue and what ones are best as one offs (The exercise ones aint my friend!). It has also made us closer friends I feel as we also laugh and can speak to eachother about how we are feeling during lockdown. It is times like these we take our loved ones for granted and our friends and how we can’t see eachother for a coffee or a trip to the cinema.

So one thing I will pass onto you during this lockdown or if there is ever a lockdown again, connect with friends and give eachother tasks and things to do, give yourself time to write and read. talk to your friends and find ways to keep your creative spark ALIVE!

Now to get onto the tasks given to me for Week 11!