I’m not a fan of that old writer’s adage that insists that we should write every day. Maybe that works for some writers, but it doesn’t work for me. When I’m working on a project, I tend to treat it like a job. I write Mondays – Fridays and take the weekends off.

Not every day has to be a writing day. Sometimes there’s life and we have non-writing things to do. Some days are filled with jobs, errands, emails, admin, conversations, obligations—you know, the ordinary stuff of a life that exists alongside our creativity. Over time, I’ve learned that protecting my creative energy matters just as much as producing words. After all, my creative mind doesn’t switch off when I close my computer for the day.

For a long time, I believed that if I wasn’t actively writing, as in I wasn’t adding pages or revising chapters, I wasn’t working. Even worse, I thought I was wasting time. One way I’ve learned to protect my creative energy on busy days is by limiting how much noise I allow into them. I’m not on social media. I don’t watch the news. I try to stay in my little bubble as much as I can. I’m also an empath who absorbs energy around me, which makes simply being out in the world a difficult thing for me these days. I do my best not to absorb everyone else’s urgency and anger, but it doesn’t always work. Even if I’m not writing that day, I try to keep my mind clear enough to hold my creative ideas when they surface.

Reading plays a similar role for me, and I don’t mean personal curriculum or research reading. I mean immersive reading, the kind that reminds me how much I love stories and why I write fiction in the first place. Entering someone else’s world helps me focus on my own creativity. Reading allows me to experience rhythm, atmosphere, and voice without my having to produce anything. Also, reading a good book settles my nervous system in a way little else does. When I feel my anxiety kicking in, immersing myself in a good story helps me calm down because it gives me something to focus on besides my intrusive thoughts.

There’s also a psychological dimension to protecting creative energy, meaning that I no longer treat non-writing days as failures. There was a time when I would end those days with self-criticism, thinking only about what I didn’t accomplish. To me, being a productive writer meant sitting at the computer and adding words to the manuscript. Over time, I’ve come to realize that a day spent daydreaming through the story and watching the movie in my mind of my characters in action is time well spent because then, when I do get back to writing, I have a clearer vision in my mind of what I’m trying to accomplish.

I’ve had quite a few non-writing days that were sometimes more productive than my writing days. While I was working on The Professor of Eventide, I’d spend days where I didn’t add any new words, but I was adding information to my writer’s notebook, or I’d draw a map of the fictional college where the story takes place. Maybe my word count didn’t grow that day, but I was still making progress.

Being a writer doesn’t mean you have to write every moment of every day. Even when I’m not physically writing, information is still accumulating in my mind, information like observations, phrases, or questions that will later find their place in the story. Over time, I’ve learned to trust that process without forcing it into constant productivity. Most importantly, I’ve learned to have fun with the process. Yes, writing is hard, but it should also be fun, especially fiction writing. Otherwise, why do it?

The writing life is built not only in the hours we spend at our desks, but also in the hours we spend allowing for the clarity and curiosity that make creation possible. The need to sit down and write always comes back to me. I’m too much of a writer for it not to. I think that’s part of growing—learning that reading or watching other stories, allowing ourselves time to daydream through our worlds, and clearing away the clutter is all part of embracing the creative life.