It’s what you say on those days when you’re exhausted, sick, emotionally drained. The last thing on your mind is creating something. You’re pretty much focused on surviving.

You have two choices. Dig in and see what your tired frame of mind can produce, or you can rest up. Neither is the right choice every time.

But if you’ve got a scene in your novel or screenplay where a character is exhausted, sick or emotionally drained, maybe it’s the right choice right now.

Not just a little uncertainty.

Utter.

Sometimes a project comes to that. It’s not a fork in road, making you choose which way you’ll go. Instead, it’s a flat, empty plain, allowing you to go in any direction you want.

There are no landmarks, nothing on the horizon to suggest that one direction offers more hope than any other.

And when you’re in the middle of that novel, or song, or art installation, you have to keep going. The only alternative is paralysis. Death.

But the plain isn’t empty, is it? After all, you are there.

It’s time to draw upon your life experiences, your creative vision, your purpose. There is nothing there because you haven’t created it yet.

Utter uncertainty is the Void, and it’s challenging you to fill it up with beauty and truth.

It’s you.

You are also the first reviewer of your work. Because if you release it to the world, you are in fact saying, “I recommend that you listen to this. Read this. Watch this. Buy this.”

The good news is that this means you create the work for yourself. And then you trust that the world needs your point of view. In fact, that gets to the fundamental audacity of creative work. You must believe that what you’re inventing is necessary.

That’s why—when it gets really tough to keep going—you have to dig deeper. Because if you’re going to do it, it has to matter to you.

Some days nothing seems to matter. The project has no energy behind it. The news on TV seems like noise with no significance. The book on your nightstand has nothing to offer. That big goal—weight loss, saving up for a down payment on a house, going on that trip, getting published, booking that next gig, starting a business, getting married, whatever—has lost its gravity, its ability to pull you toward it.

You recognize the feeling. You’re even aware that it’s a passing thing, a phase, a momentary mood. And yet, the best you can manage is to lift the remote control and fire up the next episode of That 70′s Show on Netflix.

I’m not a mental health expert. I can’t diagnose or treat depression. Maybe that’s what it is, maybe it isn’t.

But do you know what won’t help?

Blaming yourself. Berating yourself. Hating yourself.

I’m an advocate for productivity, but there is a time to create and there is a time to take in. Honor the cycles of mood; rest when you need to; gather your energy; recharge.