“Grief is the ultimate thief of creativity.”
—Sweta Vikram
According to the Hospice Foundation of America, grief is “a reaction to loss, and like a fingerprint, it is different for everyone.”
The anticipation of or death of a loved one or an animal companion, the loss of a relationship, a job, or your independence, perhaps due to injury or illness, may trigger a grief response.
Before my friend Kerry’s death in November 2023, I’d experienced the passing of my parents and brother, but the loss of those family members did not affect me in the same way. Suddenly, I was paralyzed. For a month, I did nothing but lie in bed, watch TV, or read. I developed such a strong aversion to writing that I wouldn’t open my laptop except to check email.
I met Kerry during my time volunteering for hospice. She was sick and disabled for the entire time I knew her. During our weekly visits she became my confidant, my therapist, my spiritual director, a close and dear friend. With her death, I lost my weekly sessions. Who else would be as interested in my life? Who would listen and advise and pray with me?
Initially, I felt only relief because she was no longer suffering. It took me months to realize what I was experiencing was grief. I began to research the effects of grief on writers and found very little other than self-help information. I wanted to know if anyone else’s writing stalled the way mine had. How did they survive? What did they do to cope?
Who better to ask than other writers?
What just happened?
After her best friend passed away, Diana Giovinazzo found it almost impossible to function. “I couldn’t even do the most mundane tasks, let alone write a book.”
While under contract for five novels, two months after Patricia Rosemoor’s husband was diagnosed with brain cancer, her father was murdered. Though writing seemed impossible she did it in three- and four-hour stints during her husband’s radiation treatments. “I didn’t want to have to grieve for a lost career, as well.”
Robin Hatcher’s deepest grief came with the death of her marriage. “It is hard to write romance when one is crying every single day.”
After a stage-four breast cancer diagnosis, Nikoo McGoldrick found that 30 years of writing to entertain suddenly felt different. “Grief reshaped my priorities—I found myself needing to write with deeper purpose, to create stories that carried weight and meaning. I wasn’t just chasing plot anymore; I was searching for impact.”
Every aspect of Zita Christian’s life changed the day her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and she became his caregiver. She set aside everything else. “Sometimes, I succumbed and cried until I gagged. Later, I learned that monster’s name: Anticipatory Grief.”
Impact and recovery
“I changed, I didn’t recover,” said Melisa Todd, whose husband was killed in a car accident in 2016. “Some of the changes in your life, you never recover from. You simply adapt to fit it into the new version of you.”
“It’s very hard to write funny when you are having to deal with an aging parent who needs a lot of attention,” said Katie MacAlister, currently caregiver to her mother, who has dementia. “It took me about three years after my husband died before I got back into the groove of writing.”
How grief changes us
After the loss of her mother, Michele Dunaway found her writing became a lot more purposeful and her characters had more depth.
For Millie Copper, grief allowed her to feel as if she could say anything on paper when she switched from writing nonfiction to fiction. Her fiction series gave her a place to safely express many experiences and feelings associated with grief.
Finding help on the road to recovery
Christian meets online weekly with a fellow NINC member to talk about writing. She said, “In those conversations, I glimpse my old identity. I’m rebuilding it now.”
Widowed after a 53-year marriage, Susan Aylworth prepares ahead for the occasions she knows may be difficult. “On Valentine’s Day, I have other single women over for a dinner party with silly games and lots of sugar.”
Words of wisdom
“The one thing I learned is that grief is individual—it wasn’t even the same for each event—and that allowing myself to feel it rather than block it helped relieve the pain. Grieving has reminded me how important relationships are and that as much as it hurts to lose someone, it was worth the love.”
—Sylvie Kurtz
“You’ll need most of your energy to heal. Good sleep is essential. No one can do that for you. Same for staying hydrated. Your creative bandwidth will probably shrink for a while. Be determined. Be ruthless. Stay connected with your muse through another creative act. The second Christmas after my husband died, while visiting my daughter, I remember laughing so hard my sides ached. I realized what I’d been missing. In that moment, I reclaimed joy.”
—Zita Christian
“Everyone’s experience as a writer is singular as is every person’s way of processing grief. Put your own sense of what you need ahead of what anyone says you ‘should’ feel or do. Be good to yourself.”
—Susan Aylworth
“Be kind to yourself. Seek a good support system. Write when you can, but when you can’t, do something else to bring you moments of joy. There is no right way to go through grief, and there is no way to hurry it along. Give yourself grace.”
—Robin Lee Hatcher
“When I forced myself to start writing, I took a lot of breathers when needed. I volunteered at a cat shelter and became a Master Gardener to bring joy back into my life. Lifting my mood let me write faster and better. What I went through made my work more emotional. Better, I believe. No one can tell you how or when to grieve, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try. Ignore them and concentrate on real friends.”
—Patricia Rosemoor
“Don’t do what I did and try to power through grief by continuing to write. Take whatever time is needed to get your muse back on track.”
—Katie MacAlister
Does writing about it help?
There is no right or wrong answer to this question.
Curtiss Ann Matlock said she sometimes writes and shares about her grief experience, but never very deeply. “I generally avoid thinking about that horrible time. And my mind blocks a lot of it.”
McGoldrick, along with husband and writing partner, Jim, chronicle their cancer journey on their website’s blog.
Giovinazzo wrote articles for Writer’s Digest and Writer Unboxed on learning to write through grief.
At the time, Todd did not have a huge social media presence, “so it was just me disappearing.” But she has since given presentations on the topic (“Art After Grief”). “Lots of people said it helped.”
When Rachel Aukes made her divorce announcement via her newsletter, the response from readers filled her with love and appreciation. “There was so much thoughtfulness and empathy sent via email.”
Christian created a podcast to share her experience to help other caregivers.
After her father and father-in-law died within days of each other, Sweta Vikram shared her grief experience in several online articles and wrote a book to aid others.
“Some research suggests that disclosing deep emotions through writing can boost immune function as well as mood and well-being,” said Vikram.
An unproductive phase or what we think of as writer’s block could be unaddressed or unprocessed grief coupled with exhaustion.
Writing may become more honest and intense when emotions we might avoid or haven’t dealt with are confronted. For Vikram, grief caused a shift in her tone and deepened her perspective, while revealing parts of herself she didn’t know existed. She said, “We might be individuals on our own journey of healing, but we are all connected and not so different from each other.”
My friend Kerry always wanted to write but never had the opportunity. Months after she died, I started writing again.
I hope to honor her by incorporating what I learned from her into every story I tell. She was my biggest fan, and I’ll never forget the impact she had on me.
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Barbara Meyers writes contemporary romance, women’s fiction, and cozy fantasy.