On Tuesday I sat on the couch and watched TV from 4:30pm until 8:30pm. It was mostly episodes of House Hunters and Property Virgins because I decided that counts as research for if/when I can ever afford to buy a house, but at the end I got sucked into a Vh1 re-run of Michael Jackson’s THIS IS IT, and that’s not technically applicable to my current career trajectory (though “become Kenny Ortega” should really be on any smart person’s vision board).
I am proud to say that this marks the first time since I left my job that I’ve gave in to the desire to close my laptop and veg out for an entire afternoon. I am not proud to say that this marks the bagillionth time I’ve considered it, only to be stopped by some combination of intense guilt or a well-timed moment of inspiration.

I’ve been writing for enough years to know that every day wasn’t going to be filled with nine hours of blissful, uninterrupted creation just because, hey brain! I sacrificed income for this lifestyle! But I have to admit that the decision to not write because you just don’t feel like it weighs heavier now that the product of what that writing session might have been is your livelihood…well, your intended livelihood.

The creative process is about as easily explained as it is understood, but at its core, it is just another form of work. There are days when you’d rather procrastinate with absolutely anything rather than sit down to write the pages you need to write. I have re-organized my closet in ROYGBIV order; experimented with varying degrees of a smokey eye, thank you pixiwoo.com!; and assigned myself to a personal Quick Fire Challenge: vegetarian chili, contents of your cupboard, 20 minutes, go!

“But you’re a writer!” you yell at yourself, “writers write!“

That is true, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t hate it from time to time. I know that I can write – I’ve done it countless times before – but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still days where I wake up gravely fearing the blank white page, days when I am certain I have no idea what I’m doing. On these days – aka this very day – I try to remind myself that writing is like working out. (Bear with me, especially if you know my gym attendance history)

Sometimes you’re excited to hit that elliptical. You’ve got a nice playlist going. You’re wearing your deep fuscia sports tank with the built in bra. That slightly creepy trainer who gives you the right kind of “hey” nod is in the building. You know that parts of the work out will be tough, but your eyes are on the prize. You look forward to the feeling of accomplishment you’ll have when your 45 minutes are up. And so you jump on that machine and go.

Sometimes the idea of that elliptical makes you want to punch things. You hate every song on your playlist. You look fat in every built-in bra top you put on. You keep dwelling on that miserable moment 20 minutes in when your forearms start to sweat. Whose forearms sweat?? You don’t care how good you’ll feel once it’s over. Working out is overrated! Inner thigh chub be damned! And so you avoid that machine and find more DIY projects on Refinery 29 that you’re never actually going to attempt.

But here’s what I’ve trained myself to remind myself when the harrowing memories of hours spent on one page of dialogue surface just as I’m about to dive into an edit: five minutes of exercise is better than no exercise at all. Even five minutes of half-assed exercise (anyone else “lift” 5 lb weights while watching re-runs of Sex & The City?) is a plus. Because here’s what tends to happen. Five minutes turns into 10 minutes, which becomes 20 minutes, which somehow turns into two and a half hours, and suddenly you’ve written the entire one-page synopsis for the YA novel you’re pitching. When you woke up the idea of writing that one-page synopsis was crippling. Now it’s done. And somewhere during those two and a half hours that you tricked yourself into, you loved it. It felt awesome. You came up with a line so brilliant that you considered copying and pasting it into an e-mail to your boyfriend. Subject line: Get ready for retirement baby! 

Writing is a muscle, and shockingly like an actual muscle, the more you work it, the more comfortable it feels to do that work.

I know that is a fact. I’ve experienced that fact in practice hundreds of times.

And yet I still spent 30 minutes writing this blog post instead of editing the book proposal I’m supposed to be editing right now.

At least I worked out this morning…in front of The Today Show…for 15 minutes.