What to do on days when your writing takes a back seat to the rest of your life

Some days are just rougher than others. Yesterday was one of them. I woke up at 6:30 and knew I should have gotten out of bed to write for an hour or two before my hubby and the cats were up. But I didn’t. I fell back asleep, waking at 8:30 to a ringing phone and the beginning of my workday.

It was a long day of dealing with the little stuff—answering customer questions, paying bills, compiling marketing lists, shipping, creating content for a product brochure, etc. But despite giving my all to every task (and doing a damn good job, by the way), I was left feeling underappreciated and devalued. It was a sucky kind of day.

So, at the end of my workday, instead of killing somebody, I made a list of alternatives:

• call a friend who unconditionally loves and appreciates me;
• hit the gym to work out some of those frustrations;
• drink a shot of cinnamon whiskey (thanks to my son and his new bride for introducing me to this tasty little demon);
• clear my writing space, which includes telling everybody else to leave the house for the evening;
• write two blog posts to prove to myself that I can still put sentences together;
• revise a chapter that needs a different ending;
• sketch out a new scene for tomorrow morning’s writing time;
• go to bed earlier than midnight and set an alarm so I can get up in the morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for my writing.

I view the rough days as fodder. As long as I can look back and acknowledge what I could have done differently, I know that I can create a different day tomorrow.

I won’t try to have a better day. I will have a better day, because I’ll make sure that what I value most, my writing time, comes first.

Like Yoda says, “Do or do not. There is no try.”