Creatives week; Day 1

I belong to a writing family called Afrobloggers who seek to impart storytelling knowledge and skills to African bloggers through webinars, workshops, and tutorials and once again this year they are doing this through organizing a writing challenge for the family.

If there is a challenge that I was reluctant to participate in this year was #WinterABC2021 partly because I have been on a writing sabbatical for close to a month now. (the reasons for the sabbatical will be a story for another day) Thankfully unlike the previous years where the writing challenge had a daily topic, this time we have themed weeks. This is in a bid to align the topics with the site objective which I thought was very wise, so all I have to do is to adopt the theme, create content that aligns with my site and let my readers enjoy away.

Starting off this day, we will be taking down memory lane to the uneventful past year 2020 as a creative. Is it only me who has seen a sudden influx with the use of the term creatives? The other day I was scrolling through twitter when I saw an advertisement for “creatives weekend” and looks like being a creative is the new post COVID slogan. With the entrance of COVID19 in 2020, many people have had to become more creative with their time to remain afloat. So who exactly is a creative you may be wondering.

To understand who a creative is, let us understand that creativity refers to the act of creating new things. It’s innovative, mind-blowing and fresh yet relaxing so I want to believe everyone has the capacity to be a creative. Real creativity in any space requires vulnerability and sensitivity. Talking about the past year 2020 where everything changed very unexpectedly, we are attempting to see what it was like for many creatives.

A blessing in disguise

In the wake of the outbreak of the COVID19 pandemic, many governments world over imposed periods of lockdown and here in Uganda, it was not any different. On March 18th 2020 a countrywide lockdown was imposed as a measure of curbing down the spread of COVID19 to reduce the pressure on the healthcare system which is already wobbling. This period was strange for everyone. It indiscriminately had an unprecedented impact on social lives and many had to find a way of managing the situation at hand. A lot of the negative effects for this period have been pointed out but with these came some positives. Follow with me as I point 2 that stood out for me;

  1. Uncertainty

Much as this period came with uncertainty which often comes along with it stress and anxiety, for creatives this served as a catalyst believe you me. This was in abid of making sense of the situation and trying to cope with the uncertainty. Every many people discovered skills they did not know that they had. Content creators shot up in arguably the shortest time ever recorded in the world. I for one, much as I was still actively employed, I was working from home which only meant that there was more time on my hands than before hence lighting my creative fire which got me to read and write more. A total of 57 articles were written in 2020 alone, something which probably would not have happened if it were not the ‘downtime’ that was made possible by COVID19

2. Solitude

With lockdown measures heightened, we were not able to leave our homes except for a few meters around the home maybe, could not meet family and friends, workplaces had changed addresses to virtual avenue so we could not even meet workmates came with it solitude. Solitude has for long been a bed for creativity to be birthed. I know many creatives who often say I need time alone to ‘create my baby’, now we had more than enough time of solitude to create. So many songs were written, books authored, art pieces drawn, careers redirected and birthed thanks to the uninvited periods of solitude that we were given. I was able to finally take a chance on being an author myself being able to write a book on nutrition for the differently abled children called Differently Abled Nutrition that will be on the market anytime now.

What blessing in disguise stood out for you during this period? It surely can’t be all bad.

Let us start off the #WinterABC on lemonade we made when life handed us lemons.

Let the games begin

12 Replies to “2020 through the lens of a creative”

  1. The uncertainty that Covid 19 brought

    Interesting to know the effects were similar for most people

    Thank you

  2. Excellent post. I was checking continuously this blog and I am impressed!
    Very helpful info specifically the last part 🙂 I care for such information much.
    I was seeking this particular information for a very long time.
    Thank you and good luck.

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