Today is #FolkloreThursday, and with lots of you still adjusting to your first experience of isolation, I think it’s a good time to talk about how folklore – and stories more widely – can help with that.

Folklore may not be as important today as once it was for sharing information aimed at keeping people safe or teaching moral lessons, but it remains as important as ever for helping people focus on big, universal themes and shared ideas.

When we’re focused wholly on the present, our immediate fears and concerns can become overwhelming. Folklore gives us an awareness of how big the world is, reminds us that this too shall pass, and helps us connect with one another.

In Western society we have an unfortunate tendency to think of storytelling as something that belongs to the realm of childhood. We may still read and discuss books, play games and watch films, but we’re shy about creating fiction of our own.

For all the good work done by projects like #NaNoWriMo, they present us with an idea that storytelling is acceptable for adults for certain purposes, within certain formats. Write a book. Make a film. All well and good, but we need to explore more widely.

It begins with telling stories to ourselves. Some people will find this easier than others. Not everyone has the same ability to imagine images, sounds and smells, for instance, but it’s worth developing what you do have.

Sick of looking at the same four walls? A good place to start is by thinking about a space where you’d prefer to be. It might be a house, or a castle (you can set your own budget), or an outdoor space. Spend time on it. Fill it with detail.

Get to know your space. Don’t be sad or dismiss it as worthless because it’s not real. Inhabit it. Let it be your sanctuary. When life is too stressful where you are, you can escape to this place. With time, it will become easier and easier to do.

No matter what happens to you, nobody can take away your imaginary retreat, and nothing can altogether deprive you of the comfort and happiness you feel there (or, if you prefer, the thrill of action and adventure).

Once you’ve created a space like this, you can people it if you like. A trick we #writers use is to create characters in a similar way to creating worlds but then, crucially, to let them grow by themselves. They will have their own experiences and find their own directions.

If you do it well, you won’t always agree with them or even like them. It won’t be like talking to yourself. They may give you fresh insights and ideas. And if you find you really don’t get along with them, that’s fine; you can move on.

There’s a real life story (I’d cite details but am afraid I have no idea where the book is) of a man who was held in solitary confinement for many years, who survived mentally by making characters out of carpet fluff and imagining their lives.

People associate this kind of thing with madness. They fear it. But it’s a survival technique, and it’s perfectly possible to inhabit such worlds, to engage with such characters, whilst retaining an awareness of what’s real and what’s not.

Some of you will already do things like this through the medium of computer games and environments like Second Life. These can be great for collaborative storytelling but they’re not the only option and they can be limiting.

Exercise your imagination. Tell your own stories. Share them if you like; keep others for yourself. Create worlds where you are just an observer. But never be ashamed of using your imagination, at any age. There’s more space within it than without.

Yes, I was one of those kids who got in trouble for ‘daydreaming’ when I should be concentrating in class. And my teacher used to say “What’s outside the window that’s so interesting?” And I used to think “The whole damn world.”