An infinite number of monkeys at infinite keyboards may eventually hammer out Shakespeare, but I’m no monkey and I don’t have infinite time. And like many writers, I suffer from the dreaded “oh-god-my-writing-sucks” syndrome.

But sometimes – and writers will admit this if you press them – you re-read something you write and there is a flash of happiness that lifts you up. In that moment, the world is clean and crisp, like inhaling mountain air on the perfect autumn morning. A lightness swells in your chest and pride dodges around the doubt and you sit and revel in a sentence or two that perfectly, succinctly, and beautifully encapsulates what you intended.

It is likely that writers more talented than me feel this emotion way more than I do. But for all the writers out there, these are the moments we live for. Strive for. Cry and bleed for. (Ok, not bleed. Metaphorically bleed.)

My most recent euphoric moment was with this simple sentence from my current work in progress:

His leathery brown skin came from a lifetime of working under the sun, but the wrinkles at the outer edges of his eyes were crafted from years of smiling when he gazed at his wife.

Out of context, maybe the line doesn’t have the same impact. But for me, it shows the soft, warm, ever-present love in a couple that has been together for many, many years. This is not the hot passion of young love, nor the electric feeling of a first kiss. This is not the will-he-or-won’t-he kiss her tension. Rather, this is the calm, steady love that people strive to have. The kind of love you long for in the moments between the electric first kiss and wondering if there will be another date.

Writing is hard. You want to scream. You want to cry. You do cry. Sometimes you want to live out the printer-bashing scene from Office Space with your laptop.

But sometimes we nail it. And there are few better feelings in the world than reading a sentence where you nailed it. It makes all the hard times worth it.