It happens every so often - this overwhelming feeling that all you do is garbage and you're wasting your time and no one will ever read it or want it or praise it...or even care enough to trash it.

It can be debilitating.

So you close the laptop, shut your notebooks, and cap your pen. You turn on the music really loud and you clean the toilet because you know that's something people actually appreciate even if they don't say it.

Every day can't be an eternal flowing of perfect word-creation.

It just can't.

And they weed out the wanna-be's from the gonna-do's. 

And I wanna-be a gonna-do and so I persevere. I'll clean the toilet. I'll fold the laundry. I'll sweep under my table so tonight's Writer's Jam attendees won't grind old Corn Pops into their socks...and somewhere in the middle, while I'm scouring a pot or adding a blouse to the ironing pile, I'll rediscover that spark. I'll stumble on the missing piece that's held inspiration at bay and I'll drop the pot back into the bubbles and fling open my notebook and catch that wisp of an idea before it's tossed out with the bathwater.

Because maybe, for a moment, I questioned who I was but then, in stepping away from it I realize exactly who I am and why that's who I need to be.

There is an ebb and flow when it comes to writing. You have to accept that truth or it could break you. Be the shore. Catch the wave when it comes, soak it into every grain of your sand so you have the strength to wait when the tide is low.

Don't despair. It always returns. If you want it to.

I promise.