A Bad Day at the Office

I had a really bad writing day last week.
Spectacularly bad.

The Judge (my pet name for the critical voice in my head) was on a tear, thriving on the energy of comparison and scarcity, stoking my self-doubt. So loud was the Judge's ranting that it drove away every other idea that tried to break through to consciousness. In the end, I walked away from my notebook feeling drained and disgusted.

It wasn't until I attempted to relate just how bad my writing had been to my husband later that evening that the revelation hit me: My bad day wasn't a sign that I should drop the pen and never pick it up again. It was just a "bad day at the office." I had plenty of them as a teacher -- days when a lesson plan fell flat, when reviewing the reading felt like slogging through a pit of quicksand, when a student's bad behavior or sour attitude made me want to quit. Why shouldn't the same hold true for the writing life?

Somewhere along the way, I had bought into the fantasy that if I was doing what I loved, there would never be any ups and downs. Just one up after another. It was the Judge at work again. The one who convinces me that everything in life is either good or bad and that the "bad" parts are to be avoided at all costs.

But without those days when the writing is hard, when it feels like the words have to be squeezed through the nib of the pen one letter at a time, how would I develop an appreciation for those blessed days when the muse visits, or even just the ones when days or weeks of revision result in a poem or essay ready for the public eye?

When I sat down to write the next morning, the Judge was silent. My words flowed from the pen to the page in a steady stream, and the bad writing of the day before receded into memory.