I’m having a bad writing day today. It’s not that I’m stuck on anything — I’m probably only one full hand-written page away from being done with a short story draft. Part of it is that I have other things in my head, little anxieties, bugging me, eating away at my energy. But really, I’m just having a day where the words aren’t coming, they’re just dribbling out, tumbling into each other and making a poorly written mess. I could just power through it (that’s basically what I’m doing for this blog post) but everything I’ve tried to write for the short story is not what I’m looking for, each word sounding completely off-key.

So while I’d love to finish this story, so I can spend the weekend typing it up and making minor adjustments, a task that’s generally a relief after putting all that energy into coming up with the story, I can’t write it today. It won’t happen. I’m annoyed with myself for it, but I’m trying to remind myself that I did good work over the past few days, and that sometimes I need to take a bonus break to read, or knit, or watch a movie, let that part of my brain rest so that all the jumbled up puzzle pieces in my head can fall back into the right place, or at least a close approximation.

Other writers, what do you do on your off days?