There are days that sit in between one’s most productive days; they perch halfway in between relaxation and frustration. They’re relaxing because you find yourself somewhat able to recuperate in your mind, but are frustrating for almost the same reason—you feel lazy, unproductive, distracted. Some of these days aren’t so bad, and you might enjoy the reprieve a bit. And still many of them are terrible because what have you got to show at the end of the counting hours?

These are the days which all creative types loath. You can’t hate them fully because you know in the back of your mind you need to take days to breathe, to recharge and reset. But we hate them nonetheless because our minds are most always on—they never turn off and we like it that way.

It’s hard as a creative type—particularly as a writer—to accept that these stretches of time are necessary. In the end, we simply can’t be on all the time, though we try to fool ourselves into thinking so. We might like to believe that we can forge ahead—push through—on a creative and/or intellectual level, but it’s rarely ever our best work. Many times it’s a placeholder for the better work to come. Sometimes it’s that push-through right after those sorts of days that we are most proud of in our work portfolio.

Take a day to breathe every now and then—the work only really suffers when you burn out completely.