Don Winslow Turns To Writing For Stress Relief During Anxious Times

"Borken" author Don Winslow describes his quarantine experience and how similar self-isolation is the normal, everyday life of a writer.

Video Transcript

RICKY CAMILLERI: How are you-- how are you staying sane during your lockdown, during your quarantine? Are you getting a lot of writing done? Or are you finding it hard to focus?

DON WINSLOW: Here's the sad thing, OK-- for a writer, the lockdown is not that much different from real life.

[LAUGHTER]

You know? It's like-- I spend all day alone anyway, you know, writing and making stories up and that kind of thing. So it hasn't been that different. But yeah, I've been watching a lot more DVDs, reading more, all of that kind of stuff. You know, I think that everyone's doing it.

RICKY CAMILLERI: Do you find it-- are you finding it harder to focus with everything that's going on?

DON WINSLOW: Not really. You know, look, right now, I'm on this book tour. So it's a virtual tour. So I'm doing a lot of interviews and things. So that-- you know, that's different from my normal writing day. I'm still writing, you know, in between interviews and when I have a chance to do it. But no, you know, I'm not finding it hard to focus. I think, look, these are-- this is uncharted territory for everybody.

Everybody's anxious and concerned. And for me, you know, the solution to that at any time has always been to write. That's what I do, and that's where I think I find the most sort of solace, to the extent that I need it.