Depression's nothing new to writers--sometimes it's the paradoxical motivating force that pulls the pen across the page.  Some of the best humor comes from depressive roots, and certainly it's close acquaintances with introspection and examination.

It's also a stunting effect.  My own depression is cyclical and when it erupts, zit-like, I question the whole writing process.  Should I bother?  Who would read my crap?  Do I even have anything that needs to be said?  What makes me so great?

My depression has been entertaining a tawdry, incestuous relationship with my inner critic.

Sometimes only certain types of writing are affected.  I can crank out flash fiction but my blogging is disabled.  I can blog but I have nothing to write in correspondence with personal friends.  I can write letters but my pen-and-paper journal is neglected.

Other times, writing as a function is suspended, and along with this everything else I enjoy suffers: World of Warcraft, cooking, stamp making, playing with the cats, &c.  It's hard to read a book at all, but currently I've got a stack of books by my favorite author and each one is an admonition of my weakness.  "Look at how much I wrote," they say to me, "and you can't even plonk away at your fancy-dancy laptop?  Look at these novels!  Look at these collections of short stories!  Imagine what doesn't appear in here!  Imagine all the writing submitted and had rejected!  And you can't muster a single sentence?  For shame."

I can't even plunge into drinking.  My 12-year-old Speyside is for writers, my harsh Czech absinth is for writers, and I clearly am not one.  At best I can ask for a filtered water.

It's at times like these when every author of note and influence insists, "You've got to just sit down and write something.  Write about how you can't write anything.  Write 'I hate life' over and over and over and see where it goes."  It's like an Olympic cyclist who doesn't have access to his bike, his stationary bike is broken, and he's told to lie back on his bed and make pedaling motions in the air at the very least.

Is that right?  Is that it?