Think of it like music.

Music a series of notes in a sequence, right? Well, it can also be understood as a series of spaces between notes. You can’t have a rhythm or melody without empty spaces of different lengths. In fact, the spaces are as important as the notes. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t have music without silence.

It’s the same with writing. The bad days allow the good to exist. So instead of seeing the off days as negative, perhaps we can see them as being part of the process.

But can we really be content with an “unproductive” writing day? Even as I write this I’m thinking it’s a load of crap. But there’s also some part of me that knows it’s just how things are. No amount of frustration is ever going to change the fact that I can’t be on all the time. I need to be off to be on, and vice versa – just like rhythm and melody.

My writing rhythm over a given week is going to be made up of a series of ons and offs, and if I can come to see the offs as being as valuable as the ons, then perhaps I can inch toward avoiding the pain, anguish and orgasms that come when I feel off.

Actually, it’s not about valuing them – it’s about accepting them. It’s about seeing the relatively empty part of the canvas as being as vital as the detailed part. If you look at a painting of a country house at night, the black sky is as fundamental to the painting as the glowing lights of the house. Without the empty space the meaning of the painting would be completely different. It wouldn’t be a little house on the night prairie. It’d be a little house in the sunshine. Or a little house among flying sugar sachets or whatever else replaced the empty night sky.

Nothing is something. So on those days when you’re actively working but seem to be getting “nothing” done, know that you are, in fact, getting something done – and, ultimately, that is everything and all you can do.