Sometimes the hardest part about being a writer is reaching the end of the workday and feeling like I wasted my time.

I had a very productive day: wrote 11 pages, did some key research, outlined another project and even organized the top of my desk…yet when I stopped work for the day I felt a sense of incompleteness.

As authors we are encouraged to feel satisfaction and accomplishment from showing up every day at our computers and putting even a few words on the page. I wonder if there are other authors who often leave their desk frustrated or filled with fear they are wasting their time and cheating their families from a “real paycheck?”

I stood in front of our family room window after work today, sipping decaf coffee watching a new neighbor building their home. Excavators were digging a septic system. Concrete workers prepared the garage floor to be poured, while others sealed the concrete basement so it could be backfilled.

Watching these hardworking people I knew they would go home feeling they accomplished something. The house wasn’t complete, just like my novel wasn’t complete. So why can’t I feel their sense of having worked hard today.

My conclusion is this: First, they are being paid every day for their accomplishment. Second, they have bosses and co-workers telling them (hopefully regularly) job well done.

I love what I do, but I enter each day not knowing if the work I do today will ever generate interest or income. Quite frankly, most of us need income. And that income is also a validation of our efforts, paid to most, daily, weekly or bi-weekly.  Even writers earning a decent income can’t be sure what they write will be accepted as payment worthy.

And honestly, the only “person” telling me good job at the end of the day is my cat. He feels MY day is worthwhile if I allowed him to sit on my hands while I attempt to type, and if I let him walk all over my notes and mix them up. Today, he gave my chin an extra head bump reward because I successfully kept typing while his tail moved across the keyboard and his paws stepped on the mouse pad.

I’ve read the books telling writers if you write 500 words each day you are succeeding. Plus, all the other seminar-style, ego boosting statements to help writers feel good about our production, and not beaten up when we can’t write anything more than our name at the top of the page. My intellectual brain buys it; but my Xanax eating, wine guzzling, brain doesn’t.

Some days we just need an atta-girl and a paycheck. This life definitely isn’t for everyone, which is where the Xanax and wine come in really handy.