Good Days and Bad Days

Anyone who has been writing for more than a day knows that sometimes writing is wonderful and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's fun and sometimes it's not.

The bad days can come at the slightest provocation: a discouraging critique, a rejection, a negative review. Even going through the motions of surviving the social media circus can throw an entire writing day off kilter.

For me, yesterday was one of the bad days. By trying to do everything, I was effectively doing nothing, and to complicate matters, real life got in the way as well. I woke up fully intending to dive into chapter six of Unmade, but by the end of the day I hadn't written a single word.

Are any of you ever paralyzed by days like that? Sometimes during this time of year I'm seized by writing mania, and I can't stop working without feeling like the whole world will end. So when I get a day like yesterday and I don't write anything at all, the guilt starts clawing its way down my throat to my belly.

Those are the times when I really need to remember why I'm writing in the first place. For every negative there are a half dozen positives: the joy of discovery, the feel of accomplishment, the thrill of improving bit by bit; the characters who teach us about ourselves, the worlds that spark our creativity, the plots that draw us deeper and deeper; meeting someone else who loves to write, hearing back from someone who loved our work, connecting to people through words in ways were weren't able to before. All that and more.

Today was a good writing day. Today I wrote a lot of words (and some of them were even good). Today I'm thinking about all the reasons I keep pressing on.

How are you today? Are you caught up in the excitement of writing or are you in that moment when you need to remember why you keep coming back, day after day? Whichever place you're in, take a moment to celebrate the reasons you love to write.