A writing coach I’ve met with a few times, Nancy Rawlinson, has just started a blog about “books, literature, publishing and the creative process.” Some good stuff up there so far. She links to a piece by writer Anne Enright, who says:

Over the years, you learn to keep your emotions in the place where you write. With practice you can wrestle them down to something roughly the size of the page.

Yesterday morning I woke up and decided to take a mental/physical health day. I wasn’t sure whether to call it a personal day or a sick day, because it was sort of both. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and I was feeling mentally drained and depressed and self-loathing, particularly about my ability to write, or even about my right to write. I just couldn’t bear the thought of going to work. I needed a day to recharge.

It was wonderful.

I got back into bed and turned on WQXR, New York’s classical music station. I couldn’t remember the last time I let myself just lie in bed listening to the radio. I fell asleep. I woke up. Fell asleep again. Finally got out of bed around noon.

Lay on the couch reading a couple of chapters of Joel’s book, Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever, which, despite the jocular title, is surprisingly moving.

Went to my computer to dig up old half-finished stories and pieces I’d written.

Got back into bed with The Artist’s Way, which I think I’m going to work through for the third time, and read the introductory sections.

Sat down in the kitchen to write in my notebook.

Went for a run in Central Park. I planned to run to and around the Reservoir so I could feel like Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man (which we rented a few weeks ago), but I got winded before I even got to the Reservoir. So first I started walking around the Reservoir, and then I started running again, and then I walked then ran then walked then ran then walked home.

Then I decided to do my first Artist’s Date. I decided to do something I’d never done before: bake a pie.

I bought blueberries last week, and that made me wonder about making a blueberry pie, so when I got home I found a recipe in my all-purpose cookbook, bought the ingredients, and baked a pie. I had to buy a bunch of things we didn’t have, so the pie wound up costing me 40 bucks. But that included a pie pan, cinammon, allspice, sugar, cornstarch (when I will ever use cornstarch again? better bake more pies), lemon juice, butter, and a seven-dollar tub of vanilla ice cream, because you can’t have pie without ice cream. Matt came home from work just as I started unpacking the ingredients, and he asked me why I didn’t just go out and buy a pie for less money, but then he caught himself and realized that that wasn’t the point for me, that the experience was the point for me.

Here’s how it came out.

Very oozy and drippy. But I was proud of myself, because I’d never done it before.

So we ordered in Thai food and ate pie and watched the latest episode of “Legally Blonde The Musical: The Search For Elle Woods,” which has an awkward and unwieldy title. I hate reality shows and avoid them on principle, because (1) I think they’re putting writers out of business and (2) I think a good narrative story engages the creative part of our brains better than a contest where mean people are exploited. But I actually like this show.

(I wonder if that’s why reality TV does so well: we all say we hate reality TV except for that one show.)

We watched a little more TV and then went to bed.

I still woke up too early this morning, but I feel better than I’ve felt in several days.

Sometimes, when a voice inside is telling you to take a break, you really need to listen.