There's an old John Denver ballad where he sings that some days are diamonds, some days are stones. He's singing about a relationship, but I think it also applies to writers, and how we go about our daily or weekly or even monthly attempts to put something good down on paper, or the computer screen. You know which days are stones. You can't get a coherent idea to come to your mind and you just sit there, drooling, looking at the clock every three minutes and thinking of something, anything, that will let you get up and be distracted. We all get those. A lot.
But some days are diamonds, and lately I've had some. I write this not to show off or strut, but to let you know those stories in your head might be delayed, but it you keep after it, there's a good chance those ideas will show up in something you've written. I've had a week where every day for six days I was able to write a chapter in the next Thomas O'Shea novel. Time flies, my fingers are smokin' on the keyboard, and a good chapter appears. (That's not to say revision won't be needed, but at least I'll have something to revise.)
This productivity comes after weeks of going nowhere. So persist, my friends. Persist. Some days are diamonds, some days are stones.
