March/April 2009

Writing through the credit crunch

By Andrea Enisuoh, Words of Colour Creative Arts Director

No matter where you turn it’s impossible to escape. Talk of recession that is. Every newspaper we read, every news broadcast we listen to it’s there. Then there is, of course, how the downturn affects us all, personally and financially. In one way or another, there are few who haven’t been touched.

So how is the current climate affecting the literary community? Has it spurred on writers and inspired them to new levels of creativity? Or has it helped develop some kind of collective writers’ block in the UK?

For a while I feared the latter. As someone who works with new and emerging writers all the time I even began to consider counselling as a new career. Writers who felt they couldn’t afford the cost of creative writing classes or mentoring anymore. Writers frustrated to the point of tears at having their funding applications for help to finish their novels turned down. On the phone or in person I noticed a marked increase in the amount of writers who wanted to just talk about it. I can’t pretend I was any different. I must have bored friends’ silly with tales of how the recession was affecting me.

Now I have decided I’m not playing anymore - the ‘recession is killing my creativity’ game, that is. After losing jobs and struggling financially I played along for a while. How can I write creatively when there is so much else to think about? I reasoned. Now I am looking at it in a different way. How can I not write creatively when we live in such interesting times?

One of the first pieces of drama to really ever move me was Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff. It was a BBC drama that captured the public mood of the early 1980s, a time of economic recession and anxiety about unemployment. I can’t have been more than 13-years-old at the time, but that series made me want to be a writer. I saw the way Bleasdale realistically portrayed the lives of ordinary people, how he captured their sheer despair in a moving and yet humorous way and I thought - I want to do that too.

The other night at a creative writing class I attend we all read out some recent work. I have to say I was truly inspired by the quality of what was being read out. In terms of subject matter and sheer craft it was inspiring. No collective writers’ block there.

I’ve talked to writers who because of the economic situation have more time on their hands just recently. Many have used that time to feed their creativity. Blogging for example is a very specific way of stimulating and showcasing your work. Some are just reading more and through that are learning their craft. Others, turning a negative into a positive, are making the most of having more time to write.

One thing I find I need to warn some writers against though is rushing their work. ‘I need this out quick because I need to make some money,’ one aspiring author said to me recently. Let’s not let the recession affect the quality of our work. Let’s take the time to make our writing the best ever.

As a Creative Arts Director at Words of Colour, I want to help sustain the positivity. I want to help women writers think in alternative ways about how to get their work out there. Self publishing, e-publishing, targeting small publishers rather than the giant ones, all options that are not always considered by those that want to see their novel or collections ‘out there’.

Writing at the best of times is a solitary activity. Through Words of Colour I want to help develop a network of writers; a network than can flag up opportunities and give advice; a thriving network of writers that actually support each other. That’s what new writers have told me they want more than anything. Whether there is a recession or not, every writer needs support of some kind. The new career as a counsellor? That’s on hold at the moment. With Words of Colour, there is much work to do.

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