Three Sentence Days

 There is an exercise I learned back in university for dealing with bad writing days — days you can barely set one word to the page, let alone 1,000 of them. On those days you force yourself to write three sentences about anything. It could be related to your work-in-progress (WIP), or it could something completely unrelated. This post is that exercise in action. 

Today is a bad writing day. I deal with depression, as so many of us do. I don’t have a prescription for it, but I have developed strategies for coping with it (meditation, breathing, exercise, photography, cycling). But today my depression snuck up on me, hopped on my back. Some days it’s a monkey, some days a gorilla, and today it is more like a bonobo. And it is kinda weighing me down. 

Seeing my ex drive past and knowing she saw me didn’t help. Neither has the upstairs neighbours all day sexathon. Even reading offers no reprieve because those books were written by writers who have proven they can. 

The author Mary Robinette Kowal has spoken about this method before, too. It typically works for me. I wrung three sentences out of myself, three sentences related to a particular WIP. A WIP that has been kicking my ass and eluding me. Normally I write three sentences and accept that is all I can do at the moment. No judgement. No blame. No self-recriminations. Take what you can get, regroup, and carry on forward. 

But today that just isn’t enough. So I am writing this. It’s no substitute for actual work on my actual WIPs, but it is a consolation of sorts. 

The big thing with depression is to shut out the negativity we throw at ourselves about ourselves. And some of that negativity may actually be true, but depression never offers constructive ways to deal with the truth. Depression only wants us to wallow. So act. The action may not be the action you want, but acting is proactive. If you can’t do what you want, do something else. Hell, even if the act is sitting someplace you love and watch the Sun set, or making a salad, finding things to photograph — whatever — do it.

This post is largely for me, but if you have the same, or similar a problem then it is for you too. It’s not for collecting pity, or moral boosting — I can get back up on my own. This post is just to prove we can do it and keep going. Here’s me moving on.