Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing.
Wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating.
There is no such thing as bad weather,
Only different kinds of good weather.
John Ruskin

What a cheerful attitude! Reading this, it strikes me that thinking about the weather outside is a lot like thinking about our writing and how it’s going inside. Weather-wise, we can complain about the rain or the snow or the cold — whatever doesn’t suit us. And writing-wise, we can feel dissatisfied or stressed about our day’s work and how it went.

And yet, just as our boy John says there is “no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather,” so it goes with our writing. In a sense, there’s no such thing as a bad writing day, because no matter how haltingly we move forward or even if we seem to be making no progress, we’re still doing what we’re meant to do. Just as the sun shines and the snow snows, we are doing the work we’ve chosen and the work that’s chosen us.

So let’s relax. Let’s just be with our writing — and let it be just as it is. If we have a “sunny” writing day, let’s enjoy it. And if it proves to be “rainy” instead, gray and overcast, let’s go with that without judging and finding ourselves wanting. And write on.