Some days you just feel out of sorts. Kind of off. Like the color blue. Yesterday was one of those days.

There’s no one reason and there are a hundred reasons. I have reasons to be happy, sure, but sometimes that color just sneaks up on you and there’s nothing you can do but bear it.

I woke up in the morning knowing full well that I had written up to the half-way point of chapter 16 in my new work in progress (WIP) but that I had only outlined through the first quarter of chapter 17. What does that mean? That means that there was a very real chance that by the time I finished writing in the morning I would come to the end of that outline and be lost come Wednesday. And I was right.

When I was done writing for the day I had to go workout and then do cardio. I did it even though I was kind of dragging my feet, sighing like a eye-linered teenager. And when I was done I dragged myself back inside and did some cardio. I managed to read one chapter of the book I’m critiquing as well. So, not a bad morning by any means. It wasn’t even lunch time and I’d accomplished a lot. A lot. But I was just kind of deflated.

If it gives you any idea, to get through writing I went from listening to Gold Dust Woman on repeat for an hour to Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums for the next solid hour. With the volume turned way up. If I can’t listen to my soundtrack on random and have to resort to ear-splitting levels of one angry song, things are not going smoothly. Funny enough, I love every word I put to paper today, even if I hated them while I was writing.

Then I made a business call, and was very happy to just leave a voicemail. Extroverts don’t get this quirk of mine. I fucking hate talking on the phone. Hate. It. It’s one of my introvert quirks of mine that gets worse the older I get. I don’t like the anticipation of a phone call, especially if it’s an important one, I don’t like trying to sound calm and cool because I so rarely am and I’m conscious of my “Ums” and “likes” and all that weirdness. I’ll happily talk to a crowd of hundreds but put me on the phone and I hate life. I have no idea why. I just know that I was a happy camper when they stopped charging ten cents a text.

Then my hubs told me that he was done for the day – no more clients. He hugged my blue self and asked if I’d like to do something. Get out of the house. Try to shake it off. Whatever I wanted.

We’ve been watching our pennies because, as they say, “Winter is coming.” And we’ve dealt with the plague going around like so many others. So these two things have kept us cooped up in our tiny house for weeks.

So I put myself together, figuring out what would accessorize nicely with my particular shade of blue and we left. We had a little lunch and then went to see Loki and the Dark Planet. What? Oh, you thought it was called “Thor” and the Dark Planet? Yeah, that’s going around a lot. It’s wrong. It’s the Loki show and WE ALL KNOW IT. SHADDUPYOU.

By the time the movie was over I was feeling a lot better. I even got an idea to make the last scene I wrote in my WIP better, stronger and might help me figure out what’s happening to this character. I even managed to outline the rest of chapter 17 so I have something to work with tomorrow.

Why am I blue? Who knows. I think it’s the book I’m working on right now. I just hurt my main character and I hate when I do that. And I’m in the middle of NaNoWriMo without a complete outline and that sucks.

So why am I telling you all this? Because it’s easy to think that people always have it together online. It’s easy to look and sound upbeat and like everything is just mashed potatoes and gravy. But it’s not, not always. Sometimes the gravy is lumpy and the potatoes are burned. I’m writing my ninth novel right now and it is kicking my ass. I actually looked at my hubs at lunch, sighed and said, “Writing is hard.”

So if things are hard for you, if you’re feeling a particular shade of blue, know that you’re not alone. Even if people seem fine, they might be trying on their own blue coat today. Take a break. Go do something. Get out of your head for a minute and cheer yourself up. Let go of that problem. You deserve a minute.