How to Write During Difficult Times

Some thoughts and prompts by Abigail Thomas and Darien Gee [PDF booklet] and full text

Dear Writer,

It can be difficult to write during times like these. Over and over we are shocked and heartbroken by what is happening in this country. The scenes from Chicago and Minneapolis have been extremely upsetting. Earlier this month, Renée Nicole Good was shot and killed by ICE. This past weekend Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents. We are stunned and outraged. Where are the words for acts like these? Where are the words for anything?

We are writers, and writers need to write. We write for ourselves, for clarity, and for the relief that writing gives us and others. Still, we have both found it difficult to find our way into what we are feeling. There are either no words, or a deluge of words that feels too heavy to hold all at once.

After a long phone conversation back on January 15th, we decided we would both try to write something that might be helpful to others in the same boat. We offer our two pieces as ideas for writing that which is too hard to write. Two different approaches which we hope you will find helpful in some way.

We’re not telling you to be brave, or to publish, or to put yourself at risk. We’re telling you this: if you can write—just for yourself, just for ten minutes—please do. Give yourself a moment to tell the truth and breathe, and know that your words matter.

Keep writing.

love,
Abby & Darien

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How To Write During Difficult Times Thomas Gee 2026

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TRICK FLOOR by Abigail Thomas

It’s a mild day in January. January 15, 2026, to be exact. Those tiny inconsequential flakes are falling from the sky again, the kind that never make it to the ground. It’s only for now that they exist, while you watch, because they will leave no trace. You feel it your duty to look for a while. Maybe it’s your kitchen window. Maybe you are making scrambled eggs with chili crisp again. It’s your favorite thing to eat. Lots of butter heating in the small cast iron frying pan, two eggs you’ve beaten together with a fork. You pour the eggs into the hot butter, give the eggs a stir or two, the edges cook fast, so your spoon pushes them into the middle, give it another stir, and turn off the heat. They will keep cooking, but just a little. You need the chili crisp now, it’s over there in the cupboard.

Your house is almost as old as you are, and you are eighty-four. You have walked across these rooms for twenty-four years, and they have always been steady under your feet. But as you turn toward the cupboard, you feel the kitchen floor give way and you are surrounded by darkness. Something rolling toward your feet reminds you of those exploding flash bangs things, and you see again first the holding fast, then the scattering, then the running—but wait, it is your dog’s ball, and she is barking, your dog who loves and worries about you, and thinks maybe you need to play. Maybe you have watched too much news.

Maybe you have watched a woman shot in the face. Maybe her name has been dragged through the mud of lies. Maybe since then there have been people sprayed with tear gas, a young man blinded in his left eye, his head full of inoperable debris. People sprayed with tear gas, as well as some sort of chemical without a name, a woman dragged out of her car and thrown to the ground, handcuffed, cursed at, pushed into a windowless van. Countless people grabbed from their working day, the front doors of their houses, chased through the streets, beaten, handcuffed and thrown into other vans. Children. My god, the children. Maybe you ought not to look at any more news today, but it’s the least you can do. You will make yourself watch. Not to understand, because what is there to understand? It’s pretty clear what is happening.

You gather yourself together. You get the chili crisp, walk back to the stove where the edges of the eggs are still soft, take a good fat tablespoon of the chili crisp, dump it on top, and stir it round and round. You know how delicious this is going to be. You coax the lovely mess into a bowl and return to your chair. You eat it up with a big spoon. Then you balance the empty bowl on a pile of papers and start to write. You really have to write. Something. Anything. Even if you can’t, you have to. But first, maybe you stand up, stamp both feet on solid ground, sit down again. Then you try to describe the cruelty alongside the horror and disbelief. It’s impossible. So you dig into your arsenal of filthy words, but nothing is strong or dirty enough to fit the occasion. Fucking assholes, motherfucking shitballs, you mutter, but the words are about as effective as those tiny snowflakes. Pale, transient. In fact, no word in the English language does anything but lie on the page, not up to the task.

Maybe screaming is too hard a hard place to start. Maybe begin with the snow, and the eggs, and fetching the chili crisp, and how you were undone again by what you have seen, and if you keep writing, despite the failure of words, despite even the horror and grief, maybe you can hold tight and tighter to something intangible, something you don’t want to witness coming to an end, even as it has begun to disappear right before your eyes.

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A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING by Darien Gee

Today is January 15. I think, how can it already be halfway into the month?
I think, I have to catch up.
I think, I cannot look at the news.

I wake up with a Taylor Swift song on repeat in my head, playing over and over again.
I wake up running through every worst-case scenario with the kids, a cruel kind of what-if.
I worry I’ve jinxed myself and everyone I know.
I worry every morning will be like the last.

I consider staying in bed.

Sometimes I stay in bed.
Sometimes I get up and go to the bathroom, but instead of stepping on the scale or getting ready for my day, I climb back into bed.
Correction: I’ll still step on the scale.
Correction: Sometimes I manage to make the bed before I can get back into it.
Correction: Sometimes I manage to stay out of bed and get a couple hours of work—or something that looks like work—done, and then I get back into bed.

Today is January 15. I thought that the new year would come in gently.
I don’t know why I thought that.
I don’t know why I thought this month would be different from the past twelve months.

No one I know knows what to do.

Some things are gentle. Some things are so gentle I’m confused which way is up.
The way our part-time dog touches his nose to my leg every time he comes into the house.
The way my husband opens the door for me, after three decades of being together, even when I tell him I can do it myself.
The way a friend emails me the word REST when I’m overwhelmed or exhausted.

Sometimes I feel guilty about the gentleness.

At two o’clock on Sundays and Thursdays, I am on a Zoom with my mother for an hour, sometimes two. She is eighty-seven.
We scheduled them last November. I can’t remember why. Someone proposed it, someone said yes.

Today is January 15. Our fifteenth Zoom. We had to cancel a few.
Once, there wasn’t anyone around to help her and she couldn’t get the iPad to work.
Once, they had visitors.
Once, she was napping and forgot.
Once, I was on the road and in between hotels and didn’t want to be reading a Buddhist sutra out loud in the lobby of a Marriott.

That is what we do—we read Buddhist sutras together.

O Bhagavat! I have been observing sentient beings who have been reincarnating on their karmic paths…

I am not a Buddhist.
I don’t know if reading sutras makes things better or worse.

Maybe this is why people turn to religion (or something) when they’re older.
Maybe this is why people turn to religion (or something) when the shit hits the fan.
Maybe this is why I want this time with my mother right now.

Because the world is a lot.
Because for a few minutes, I’m mostly better.
And mostly better is as good of a place as any to be right now.

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SOME PROMPTS

Set a timer for 10 minutes. Write without stopping. You don’t have to share this with anyone. You don’t have to make it good. But don’t keep it in your body. Put it on the page.

• Write about what you’re doing instead of writing. Or, if it isn’t writing, write about what you should be doing instead. Sometimes this can get you ready to write what you want to write—or what you don’t want to write but know you have to.

• Write about the small things that keep catching your attention. An ant. A sound. The way light hits the wall. Don’t explain why it matters.

• Write nine sentences that begin with “I don’t remember…” Then write nine sentences that begin with “I do remember…”

• Write about why it’s hard to write right now. Begin with “I can’t write because…”

• Write one page of pure complaint. Rant. Let loose, don’t censor yourself.

• Write using only three-word sentences. I am afraid. The world tilts. Nothing feels safe. I keep writing. Words become anchors. Keep going until something shifts.

• Write about where you feel this moment in your body. Your chest, your throat, your stomach. Describe the sensation.

• Make a list of what you’re afraid of right now. Be specific. Don’t soften it or try to fix it, just name what’s there.

• Write about the first time you said “No,” and meant it.

• Write about where you put feelings that have nowhere to go. Is it a place? A container? A habit? Describe it.

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SOME THOUGHTS

• Don’t start with structure. If you’re planning the form before you write—braided essay, hermit crab, whatever—you’re starting with your handcuffs on already. Just write what you want to write first.

• Choose imperfection over perfection. You want real pieces, not perfect ones.

• Keep a notebook. This isn’t the same as a journal which sometimes makes you feel like you should perfect each sentence. Put everything in there—grocery lists and story ideas, the kitchen sink.

• Give yourself permission to write badly. Give yourself permission to write at all. Give yourself permission to write something you’ll never show anyone.

• Not everything needs to be published or shared. Some writing is just for you. You don’t have to remember everything perfectly or get the facts straight, you just need to be in the moment. There are worlds in every moment.

• Sometimes when you write about why something is too hard to write, you wind up writing the thing itself (see prompt #4).

• The less you explain or go into detail, sometimes the better. What you leave out can be as important as what you put in.

• Write from curiosity, even about insignificant things. Why are you staring at that ant on your desk? That crack in the wall? The less significant it seems, the more interesting it can be, because if you stick with it, you’ll finally know why. Trust your mind and your words.

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