Dog Hair on my Keyboard

Sometimes, I can’t write. The words stumble in my brain like they’re made of glue. Half-dried, tacty glue. I find myself staring out of my window, browsing online shops without the intent to buy, thinking about cleaning out my closet, and listing chores that I need to do.

It’s like I have no creative impulse to craft sentences and shape plot. It’s…just gone. I fret over these days because in order to write a novel, I need to, well…write. I’ve seen the work from those days when I force the words. It’s not good. But it’s something. It might be some notes, some boring dialog meant to be replaced later, or some exposition to get me into the zone of writing whatever scene it is.

I also have pushed myself away from the computer on those days and resorted to actually cleaning out my closet or doing laundry, or something to get out of that funk. It works for me. Sometimes my brain needs a break. I need to do something with my hands and see the result, whether it be a pile of folded towels or a freshly swept carpet.

Those slush-days are like finding dog hair on my keyboard. I can’t type without picking them all off, but because my well-loved dog is a furry beast, the task is never complete. I pick one hair off and another floats down from nowhere to land almost in the same spot.

And other times, when I don’t feel like anything at all, I don’t do anything. I turn on Netflix or YouTube, or play a video game until my thumbs hurt. Or, sometimes I do both at the same time. Two birds, one stone.

Don’t hurt yourself trying to write. Take some dog-hair days off. Relax. Be a normal kid for a change (because we all know that a lot of writers are far from ‘normal.’)