Here’s a question to all those who read this blog and happen to write: do you ever have days in which you want to write, but none of your projects seem to catch your attention? I’m feeling that today. I wanted to write something, I felt that burn in my heart to put words to paper, but when I thought about any of the myriad of projects I have, I kept telling myself ‘nah’. Nothing caught my eye, not even writing the outline for Your Tribe, Our Tribe and I love using my fountain pens.

Yesss…

I don’t know what it is. Am I just (as the kids says) ‘not feeling it’? This distresses me because I am haunted by the words of Jim Butcher: ‘I don’t have a muse, I have a mortgage.’ This is the one thing that worries me about getting to that professional level. At that point, I can’t have bad days. I have to be cranking out my best every day. I know me. I know that I am going to have off days, down days and I-don’t-wanna days. While I am at my day job, I can crank out work even when I was deep into my depression. My count wasn’t off, and my productivity wasn’t lower than usual. Then again – there’s nothing creative about what I do to earn a paycheck.

Writing is so much more to me. I can tell when I am not on my best game when I read what I wrote that day. I don’t hit my word count, or I struggle to get to my word count for that day. I’m not excited about what I am putting down on paper, as it were, and it shows. I can’t put out bad material, which makes me anxious, which blocks me from putting out my best work, which means I’m not professional and on and on and on…

See the problem I have?

I want to be professional. I want to do this for a living. I just need to get around this particular mental block. Another question to my professional writer audience: How do you do it? How do you write on days when your heart isn’t in it? There must be something more to it than just ‘nut up or shut up’.

Or should I be less irritated about taking a day off? Is that just as important as being on task? Did Stephen King take days off? Is that something I should build into my writing schedule? Have a day that’s a guilt free day off, just a day to watch a movie (which is what I did today) and relax a little. I don’t go to the gym on Sunday, so maybe I should make it a complete day of rest. Have some fun. Maybe I should look at it like that. Just try to maintain a work flow Monday through Saturday, and let Sunday be optional. Don’t stress over it. Well, don’t try to stress over it.