Confession

Sometimes I don’t want to write. Sometimes I’d rather do anything else in the world.

There. I said it. And you know what? It’s perfectly okay for me to feel that way. It really is. (yeah, can you tell that I’m not only trying to convince you but myself as well?)

I read blogs. I like them. You can see on my blog-roll that I mostly read blogs by fellow writers. I frequently hop from blog to blog, looking for new like-minded people.

But in reading these blogs, I’ve stumbled across a certain kind of writer that I am ambivalent towards.

I’m talking about the happy(!) writer. The writer who writes because she simply loves it and couldn’t be able to stop, even if she tried. The writer who writes because she needs to. Because there is no other option.

To put it bluntly, something about this kind of writer really irks me. Being an intelligent human being, I know that my dislike is rooted in envy. The way they’re wired makes me feel like I’m inadequate.

I see their happy comments about how they breathe words and fart plot-twist and I think to myself that there must be something wrong with me. Because sometimes? Sometimes I don’t like to write. Sometimes I don’t want to open the word-doc and face another blank page. Sometimes I just want to curl up with a good book and forget the world around me. Hell, I’d even do the dishes. Anything to escape that word document.

And then this nagging feeling creeps up on me, telling me that I should be writing. That if I were a True Writer, I would spend every waking moment writing, because I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. That if I were a True Writer, I would love it. All the time.

Sometimes I force myself to sit down and write anyway, regardless of how I feel. But sometimes I don’t.

It’s ridiculous, but if I have an evening to myself, and I don’t spend it writing, I feel guilty. I’ll feel like I’m not a True Writer.

It shouldn’t be that way. I should be allowed to have a day off, once in a while.

So this is me, saying that sometimes it’s okay not to want to write. It’s okay to take a day of. It’s okay to spend an evening relaxing and doing nothing in particular.

I give myself permission to have an evening off. To not be bothered by my conscience. To not feel like I’m inadequate.

This evening? I don’t want to write on my WIP, and that really is okay.