Most writers write because they love it. There may be a few out there who fell into a profession that forces them to write and they do so out of necessity, but for the purposes of this entry, I’m going to address writers who love to write, but go through bumps in the road like anyone else.

Writers write. Write everyday. Just write it out. We’ve all heard variations of these catch phrases probably several times throughout our careers. And a lot of the time, it’s great advice, but occasionally, you just need to give yourself a day off. Here are a few situations you may find yourself in, and my opinion on whether or not you should force yourself to the keyboard.

You’ve got a deadline. Most of the time, this is an easy yes. If someone else is waiting on your manuscript, you have an obligation to get it to them, they probably have people waiting on them too. Now, if you’re having a family emergency, or you’re severely ill, it might be worth it to ask your editor if there’s any wiggle room in the schedule. But most of the time, when you have a deadline, you should try to meet it.

You’re sick. I am not good at being ill. I will try to workout, I will try to keep my normal habits, I will try to work, and I’ll even try not to take medicine. I’ve gotten better about this lately and am listening to my body more. There’s a definite difference between being “a little under the weather” and truly ill. If you’re feeling really cruddy, it might be better in the long run to sleep if you can, or read if you can’t. (Unless you have the aforementioned immoveable deadline.)

You’re in a creative black hole and you hate everything that you write. If this is not how you’ve always been—if this is not a situation where you thought, “I’m going to try being a writer and see how it goes!” and just found out you didn’t like it—I’m going to suggest you try to write. I found myself immured in such a black hole in the middle of 2021. But I put “write 30 minutes” on my todo list every day. Some days I’d end up writing for longer, some days I would only get out a paragraph, but after six months, I had a first draft. I had it beta'd, decided it was terrible, and put it in the proverbial drawer, but by then my joy had come back and I went on to write other things. A few months later, I pulled that book out and dusted it off. It’s going to be published in September.

You’ve decided to try and be a writer and see how it goes! If you already hate it, just stop. Walk away. This is the most fun part. Yes, there will be times, maybe even stretches of months, where you have to haul yourself to the desk, but if you’re a happy doctor (or something) and just decided to see what would happen, and don’t like the writing part, just go back to being a doctor and enjoy reading. The parts that come after you finish the book are so much more stressful.

You’re drunk! Or in some other way impaired. “Write drunk, edit sober,” right? Well. Depends. I’m certainly not going to stop a drunk person from trying to write if that’s what they’re intent on doing at the time. There are worse things you could try while drunk. (When I was in college, I decided that learning rollerblading tricks would be best done while drunk because I would have no inhibitions and thus able to be more courageous when attempting said tricks.)

That said, I have on occasion sat down to a difficult passage with a glass of wine and decided I was going to tackle it until it was conquered and the wine was going to help me. One or two glasses of wine are fine, in my opinion. You may even get past a block. But set a limit before you sit down. I got carried away once and wrote an amazing scene, the next morning when I read it, it was like reading something I’d never seen before. It was great! It was exciting! And drunk Meredith stopped writing in the middle of it and went to bed. I had to delete all of it because I had no idea where I had planned for it to go. Basically I had to start over. No real harm done, but I’d say if you’ve had a few drinks and realize “oh, wait, I didn’t get my writing in yet,” you might want to just let it go.

You’re burnt out. Burn out is real an it’s easy to feel guilty for experiencing it. If you’ve just come off of a big project, or been on a high output tear, it’s possible you need time to refill your creative tank. I went through this a few years back and basically just did a ton of reading. I burnt through books. I still tried to write a little bit, but I tried not to get too caught up in what it was for or where it was going, but man did I go through some reading. And I wondered if my spark would ever come back. (It did.) So it’s possible you may need a break. Read some books, take an art class, do something completely different, then try again.

I do believe you should try to write every day. I also believe that we all need breaks sometimes, even from the things we absolutely love.

Should you force yourself to write?