We asked Washington writers to share stories, essays, poems, drafts, musings, and other things they’ve been working on during quarantine. Today, a riff by Susan Coll, who is the author of five novels, most recently The Stager.

Thank you very much for asking if I am writing through the pandemic.

Yes, I am! And it’s going quite well!

It wasn’t, at first, but now I have an idea.

I’ll write a comedy about a novelist who is having trouble writing until she has a minor psychotic break: She now believes the pandemic is all in her head.