I have a hard time being creative when I’m in a bad mood.
Maybe it’s from a fight with the wife or a nasty e-mail that I got from somebody, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that writing in particular for me requires me to be in a good mood … I just can’t be funny or focus or anything if I’m not.
At times I’ve tried to shelter myself when I can to avoid situations like this by not reading my e-mail or putting off a phone call that I know can’t possibly have a positive outcome, but rarely does that end up doing any good either because I think in the back of my mind, it just postpones the inevitable and somehow I can sense that the anger is just around the corner!
It’s frustrating, too, because when you only have a limited amount of time to work with in the first place, you kind of count on being able to do specific things – that’s what happened to me today because I had slated this afternoon for a writing day, but then an e-mail showed up that just pushed my buttons in all the wrong ways and now hours later this blog post ranting about it is the only thing that I have to show for it.
Occasionally if I’m lucky, I’ll have some other less creative work that I can bide my time with like maybe editing photos or writing code for a website design until I can snap out of it, but it still throws off my entire schedule which just results in my getting even more flustered to boot.
How’s that old saying go? “No one can ruin your day without your permission.” I beg to differ…