My to-do list goes something like this:

#1 Wash the dishes.
#2 Clean the litter box.
#3 Write my final paper.
#4 Publish 100 amazing books, and be the best writer ever.
#5 Live happily ever after.

Let’s be honest: You’re reading this blog because you’re a writer, too, and you probably have a similar, absurd to-do list. But I love writers because we’re outrageous dreamers without plans. We’re perceptive, intelligent, deep-minded. We provide inspiration, storytelling, culture. Sure, we’re procrastinators and introverts (and a little too arrogant for our own good), but writers preserve and represent the human spirit, like any artist or musician. Society loves us because we produce things like Fight Club, Pieces of the Left Hand, and Running With Scissors, and history loves us because we produced things like Oliver Twist, Huck Finn, and The Scarlet Letter.

I remind you of the true writer’s value, my friends, because these first winter days can be difficult, draining the last dregs of our motivation. Without the sun, it’s easy to forget what inspiration feels like. We’re lucky just to check “dishes” from our list, and we feel like half the person we want to be. We suffer writer’s block and lethargy and probably just need a damn sun lamp and a long nap.

Luckily, angst is the thing we’re second-best at, so write about it, my friends, keep woolgathering, and remember what we do has launched revolutions and started wars. Press on through that to-do list and dig deep until the sun returns.