Our world is in chaos. Two diplomats were shot to death in downtown DC. Violent protests, constant disruption. The air itself feels heavy with uncertainty. For creatives, this chaos can be suffocating. Writing—once an escape, a passion—now feels like an uphill battle against distraction and mental exhaustion.

I’ve struggled with writer’s block over the years, but this has been different. It’s the sheer volume of noise. Not the physical noise, but the noise from anger and fear.

Creativity thrives in safety, but how do you find safety when everything around you feels like a rope bridge on a windy day?

Over the past year, I’ve had to learn how to write despite the chaos, not wait for it to pass. I’ve had to redefine definitions of productivity and rethink my writing process. I’ve also had to discover how to nurture my creativity when it feels impossible. This cannot be about forcing words onto the page—it’s about survival as a creator.

I hate the discussion on writer’s block because it’s often presented as “your fault.” You let the inner critic dictate to you. You should be able to come up with ideas. You should be able to type the first word and everything flows out.

No one teaches you how to be creative in a chaotic environment like this. No one teaches you how to coax your creativity to bloom like rose-pink primrose. In some situations like a big life event, you must stop until the situation passes; in others, it’s not changing soon, so you adapt.

So I’ve been learning as I go along.

Managing External Chaos

A lot of chaos comes from external sources. Activists are noisy and aggressive on social media. They live and breathe screaming, “The sky is falling” every minute they can. Unfollow them. You can tell who they are because this is all they talk about, and they also insult the other side. There is absolutely no sense in having all this toxicity right in your face. Better to look at cute Jack Russell terrier pictures (and once you do, the algorithm gives you more. Win-win.).

Adapting to Chaos without losing yourself

There’s a temptation to want to plow ahead and ignore the problems. I’ve been guilty of this, adapting to the problem, then the next problem and then next. Suddenly everything stops working. You must step back, thinking through what your options are, and try them out. This is also likely to be dynamic because the outside world keeps shifting, along with your reactions.

Reimagine Productivity

The writing community has a history of encouraging extreme productivity levels. Writers discuss production goals or streaks to keep the pace, some using dictation to produce even more. We tracked and measured. But we’re not computers cycling to another algorithm. Creativity needs to be treated gently, like yellow Black-Eyed Susan flowers growing, not like a machine that runs non-stop.

This one’s been the hardest for me because of the culture in writing. I cringed every time I caught sight of the word count tracker (placed by the tool so I would always see it), advertising my lack of progress. There’s been some push back with “slow productivity” discussions, but that’s often framed as if writing fast means the book is garbage. Sorry, but you can’t insult people to prove your point.

Reframing Writing Goals

Pairing with the productivity culture, writers also are encouraged to have word count goals or finishing a book within a specified time frame, such as a novel every six weeks. I was always terrible with word count goals; they seemed more of a way to make you feel guilty for not getting enough done. But I had to rethink the actual project I was working on. Did I need to work on a novel now? A novel is a big project. Even if I broke it down into scenes or chapters, it’s still a big project. So I decided to work on short stories for now.

This might not be an easy decision. A little voice in the back of my mind nags, saying, “But you’re not finishing the novel.” That’s the productivity writing culture talking. Sometimes the muse needs an entirely different direction. Soil needs crop rotation to stay healthy. Why not the muse?

Use Creativity Shortcuts

This pairs with writing short stories. Use the shortcut so you’re not starting from scratch. Essentially, you’re letting something else do the heavy lifting in one place for your muse.

  • Look for anthology calls on specific topics. The anthology is giving you a starting place for your muse to work with.
  • Use an existing series and characters for the story. Since you’re doing this, you’re not inventing a character from scratch. Nor are you having to hunt down names, which is always a pain to do.
  • Use an existing world for the setting. If you’re writing a story with a urban setting, use the place you live.

Add Thinking Time

This is another idea that gets lost in the productivity culture. Productivity is about producing the next word, because that can be measured. Thinking can’t. Thinking is every bit as valuable a tool as the keyboard. It gives your muse time to water and feed the ideas.

Now the controversial one…

Use Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Writers demonize AI. But it’s a tool that’s not going away. It’s up to you how you use it. Yes, some people feed it an idea and some details and generate a complete story. But that’s not the only use.

You can use it to come up with ideas.

Non-writers think of writing as 1) Come up with a fantastic idea 2) Somehow that turns into a bestselling story. Whereas that first idea gets the story started, and then your muse has many, many more during the writing. That fun rabbit trail? An idea. That new direction for the character? An idea. A backstory for the antagonist? An idea.

AI helps with that. Not create the ideas for you, but be a partner in the writing. AI can help you brainstorm the ideas, but you are the one who decides what idea to use, what parts not use, and what direction to take it. You may even look at what AI gives you and decide, “Naw,” and then your muse pops up with one because AI gave it a nudge.

I started using an AI fiction tool after I attended an AI presentation at a writing conference. The results you get depend on what you put into it. If you plug in a general idea like “Generate a story about a murder in a restaurant. Main character female, a restaurant owner”–you’ll get generic results. If you plug in your series character name and background, genre, add the world building setting, and the subject prompt from the call, the results are much more interesting.

I did this with a science fiction story I wrote, specifying also that it could be on a planet or a space station. The ideas I received were all stellar enough for a novel. I still spent several weeks thinking about what I wanted to use and how. I didn’t use the exact idea; the AI simply gave me a starting point, and a helpful hand–one of the anthology requirement topics was not a strong point for me.

After that, I used it throughout the writing process. My primary use was every time I got stuck. Sometimes I got stuck with the five senses. Though I was told this skill would improve in time, I get stuck a lot here. Most of the time, I just needed the suggestions to jar me out of it. But I was also surprised at how often I got stuck–about every 200 words. Can you imagine trying to write in a chaotic environment when you frequently get stuck?

The story still took a lot of time to write. A writer said it took them a month to write a short story and another saying, “What took you so long?” I started this story in February and finished it in April. As I got into April, I was concerned about meeting the anthology deadline. I had to remind myself that missing didn’t matter; there were other places I could send it. I did finish it in time and am working on two more with the expectation I might not finish those in time.

Dealing with chaos and creativity is very much of a learning process. It isn’t about mastering the perfect system—it’s about learning what works for you and to keep evolving your process. Your stories may take longer to write and the muse may need extra nurturing. But writing, like survival, is about persistence. It’s about finding ways to move forward, even when the world feels mired in mud.