Writing is so totally like Roadrunner cartoons. You no sooner solve one problem than another one arises to bite you in the butt, and then you’re over the cliff and in freefall. The fall seems to take forever and the landing is rough, but you’re fine in the next frame. And each time you invent new solutions–sometimes better, sometimes worse.

This isn’t a perfect simile, but hey, I’m tired, so it’s the one I’m using. You can tell what I’ve been using to keep the kids occupied during these last couple weeks. Looney Tunes DVDs are a parent’s good friend. (Don’t get me wrong, I don’t use the telly to babysit. I just put on some cartoons when I can’t take single motherhood anymore.)

So this past week I’ve managed to write a total of about eight hundred words–frustrating in the extreme, when I’m used to 2-6K a day depending on the heat of the story. It’s like pushing mud uphill because so much of my emotional energy is taken up with being the calm emotional balance of the family. With all that expenditure, I can’t afford much for writing.

Writers do not often think about the sheer effort involved in writing. It takes a toll, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We have to have enough to spend, or the overdraft fees can be enormous. One needs energy to create, and that energy has got to come from somewhere. Part of it’s physical–taking care of your body is of prime importance. This means feeding yourself correctly (I am especially bad at this) and getting a little bit of exercise in. (I can’t count how many plot tangles I’ve solved during running or walking out at the track.) Part of it’s emotional–taking care of one’s equanimity and emotional capital so one has something to spend.

This is particularly difficult for writers. Because writing is so much a solitary art, and because publishing is such a people-based business, there is a tension between the time needed to sit down and write something and the expenditure of social energy needed to get it published and marketed. Writers get hit both ways. There are toxic “friends” who will interrupt your writing time, if they can, if you do not guard it vigilantly. (These toxic “friends” include both physical people and the naysaying little critic voices in your head, by the way.) There is also the drain of having to answer emails, write cover letters, submit, and keep up with questions from agents and editors. Plus there’s dishes to be done and laundry to fold, as well as (for some of us) kids to manage. Between the Chihuahua of Real Life humping one’s leg and the expenditure of energy elsewhere, it’s a wonder anything gets written at all.

But that’s how you spend energy. How do you accumulate it?

There’s a process Julia Cameron calls “filling the well.” It’s where you give your inner artist neat things to play with. The joy of this is that it can be cheap–a trip to a thrift store or museum, a new CD, a walk in the park. The important thing is that you look at/do things that make you happy, that give you more energy. Only you know what fills your well up. It’s those things, no matter how cheap, kitschy, or weird, that make you feel happy and energized.

I like going to thrift stores, used bookstores, and museums. I also like wandering around city streets at night taking pictures, or just walking around the track and looking at trees. Listening to new music, too. Grocery shopping sometimes does it for me, but mostly because I just get out of the house while I’m doing it.

Filling the well is a way to get that emotional capital back so you can spend it on writing. And there’s no telling what little detail you’ll see while well-filling that will untangle a plot point or inspire a new plot bunny. The energy to create doesn’t just come from nowhere. And overdrawing your well/creative checking account can be a nasty business indeed, leading to burnout and all sorts of terrible things.

So do something nice for yourself, no matter how strange it seems. Think of it as insurance against burnout. Fill up that well.

You certainly stand a better chance of catching that damn Roadrunner that way.