It’s been a pretty surreal week. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that the encroach virus literally feels like a nightmare; one which we usually wake up from and say “Frig, that was an unpleasant one.”

This is a writing blog so I’m making a conscious effort not to make it a personal journal. It’s impossible to ignore though this thing that pervades every part of our lives. When we look back, there’ll be books, films, TV shows, documentaries, countless memories and discussions and what ifs and heartbreak and yeah, some beautiful bits in there too.

We are being written, involuntarily, into this story. When we look back and read this after it ends, there are going to be unpleasant bits. That’s inevitable – it’s not the story you or I would have written after all. But we have some control. We can force the story to bend around us.

Email your local community group or parish and ask how you can help. Force the story to involve this character – you as it happens – to be a bright light in it. A character that people look back, when they read their editions, and say “Oh yeah, that person? That person was great. That person made the rest of the story better.”

It doesn’t have to be anything big. Video call your grandparents more often. Check in with a vulnerable neighbour. Message your friends who might be worrying about someone close to them and be an ear for them. Be happy. Buy a nurse a coffee. Say ‘Fair play to ye’ to a doctor you come across. Think outside the box – spend 10 minutes thinking how you can make things better. Even if it’s something you think will make you look silly, you’ll look silly trying to make things better, and you know what? That’s a pretty wonderful thing to do.

Force the story to be better. Be the character you wish more books had.

Thanks for reading.

P.S Still not finished the crime story; left that to the end in the hope it might be missed! It will be done by next week though.