I sat down to write and poured out a paragraph.

Then I stopped to regard what I wrote.

Yech, I said. It was as appealing as a dirty cat litter box.

I don’t wanna write, I whispered in my inner vault, aware of the blasphemy that I was uttering.

Nor did I want to walk. I’d completed two and a half miles. The thought of another step depressed me.

I wanted to be on the beach, basking in sunshine as I listened to the waves and watched them crash on the shore.

I wanted to be reading a book, sitting at a restaurant, enjoying food that I don’t allow myself to eat because it’s not healthy. I wanted to be listening to music and laughing with friends. I wanted to be flying away, driving away, buzzing away.

I didn’t want to be writing, walking, doing yardwork, cleaning the house, or eating healthy.

Just like that, I knew I was into one of my dark moods. It was overtaking me like a terrifying storm.

Nuts, I said. Nuts.

I returned to writing. Every word felt like a struggle. I kept pushing, looking for a carrot to use, urging myself, just finish this paragraph, and then doing it again. I really needed a club. It’s a day like this when I could use a personal training urging me to push myself. Without one, I had to do it alone.

It was a gritty session. I actually counted the words. When it was nine hundred fifty, I said, good enough, and shut down. Then I grit my teeth and braced myself to walk. I wanted at least two more miles before going home.

I know the words that I wrote today will not seem any different from my usual output. It’s just the mood that’s affecting me. Sometimes I don’t need a carrot or a club. I just sit down and write. And then there are days like today, when neither a carrot nor a club seem like enough.

It was a terrible day of struggling to write like crazy, but tomorrow is another day.