What Do Years of Random Code Reds Do to Your Writing?

Living and writing in Israel during a time of war presents a very specific set of challenges. One of the most disorienting is the randomness of Code Red alerts. These sirens are not only sudden and alarming, but lately, they're preceded by texts that tell us we will receive one in the next five minutes. On the surface, this might sound helpful. In reality, it often stretches the anxiety, creating a countdown of dread. It's hard to concentrate on a plot twist or character arc when you know an often deafening siren is about to go off.

As writers, we often think of time as something we manage. We wake up early or stay up late to fit writing into the corners of our lives. But what happens when your writing time is interrupted not by work or family, but by the threat of a rocket and then the rocket attack itself?

In the middle of trying to craft a sentence, I'll be interrupted by a message that I have 90 seconds to get to a shelter. Sometimes less. Sometimes more, depending on where I am at the time. I could be writing after work in Jerusalem, stalling to take a later bus that won't be so crowded, or spending a Friday trying to write something at Ashdod beach. This unpredictability has shaped the way I write, and more significantly, the way I think about writing.

Writing in Israel During Wartime

Before the war, I used to carve out specific times to write, often in the early morning before the house stirred to life or during the quiet hours of the afternoon when the sun beat down and the world outside slowed to a crawl. Summer in Israel is already intense. The long, hot days can drain your energy before you even sit at the keyboard. Add to that the tension of war, and it can feel impossible to focus on anything creative.

But something strange happens when your life becomes a series of waiting periods. Waiting for updates. Waiting to hear that loved ones are safe. Waiting to be interrupted. Writing during a war is not about finding long stretches of time. It's about seizing slivers of calm in between chaos. It's about redefining what productivity looks like.

Sometimes, I write for ten minutes. Sometimes, I open a file and just reread what I wrote the day before. I have learned to stop measuring my writing success in word counts. Instead, I ask myself if I showed up to the page at all. Sometimes, I'm a no-show, not only with new writing, even with the books I've already put out into the world. There's a sentence I never thought I'd write.   

Living With the Sirens

The physical toll of Code Reds is real. The emotional toll is harder to describe. It creates a kind of hypervigilance that seeps into every corner of your life. Even when I'm not actively writing, I am thinking in fragments. I start an idea and then abandon it mid-thought because my nervous system is too taxed to follow through. And when I return to the page, I find my characters frozen, paused mid-action, mirroring my own suspended state.

Writers need some level of calm to access their inner world. But when that calm is shattered regularly, you have to find new ways to trick your mind into opening that door again. I've learned to keep my phone nearby at all times, even at the gym or when I'm trying to fall asleep, because sometimes the best I can do is text myself a sentence on the go. That sentence might be the seed of a future story, or it might just be a thought I needed to release. Either way, it counts.

The Deeper Question: Does This Even Matter?

There's something else I don't often admit: I start to wonder if what I'm writing is important at all, given what's going on around me. How can I focus on a fictional character's journey when real people are facing unimaginable loss?

When my daughter comes home to tell me about her "school trip" to the site of the  Nova massacre; how she didn't know what to say when she was reading the last words on a wall and the man who comes up behind her lets her know these were the last words written by his daughter before she was murdered; when yet another daughter tells me she stood behind a former hostage in line at a coffee shop today and she wasn't sure if she should say hello or let her have her privacy; when my Shabbat guest sighs heavily as he informs me he is on his --insert impossible to believe number-- call up to Gaza next week and he can no longer be bothered to try to work or study---his longest stretch outside of Gaza since October 7  has been nine days, I feel overwhelmed. The lines are overwhelming to write and to read. 

When my students remind me repeatedly that their husbands are in Gaza during exams, so can I please keep their phones on my desk in case they receive a call because they haven't heard from them in weeks, it feels almost offensive to spend time on anything that isn't directly related to the crisis.

And yet, I write. Because not writing doesn't make the world any safer. Not writing doesn't bring anyone home.

Writing in Israel during wartime brings with it a profound tension between the real and the imagined. The drama of fiction can feel trivial next to the weight of real life. But writing is not about comparison. It is about connection. It is about bearing witness. It is about making meaning in moments that seem senseless.

Why Keep Writing?

In a world frayed by trauma and unpredictability, the act of shaping a story is a kind of resistance. It is a way of saying: I am still here. I still believe in something. Even if it's just the power of a well-written sentence.

Maybe what I'm writing won't stop rockets. It won't bring comfort to every grieving family. But it might offer someone a breath of air. It might allow a reader to step into a world that isn't saturated with fear. It might remind someone that even in the darkest of times, imagination can still flicker.

So I keep writing, in between the alerts and the updates. Sometimes I write about the war. Sometimes I write about anything but the war, as a way of protecting a part of myself that still needs lightness, humor, or beauty. As an editor, sometimes I smooth out a few lines for someone else. And yes, in the post October 7 world, I count my editing for others as writing.  

And when I feel like giving up, I remind myself, and, at times, the writers I work with: just because the world is hard does not mean your words are hollow. Writing matters, even when it feels small. Especially then.

Keywords:
writing in Israel, wartime creativity, writing during war, Israeli writers, Code Red alerts, rocket attacks Israel, emotional toll of war, resilience and writing, writing during crisis, Israeli fiction, writing and current events, how war affects creativity