Writer’s block. I don’t believe in it. I think writing is as much a creative process as it is a discipline. A formula that goes a little something like this:

1. Install a clock in your writing space.

2. Put the phone in a different room.

3. Sit down.

4. Write for 45 minutes.

5. Take a 5-minute break.

6. Rinse and repeat until you get to your target word count for the day (and yes, some writers are literally freaking out about the fact that I used the term “target word count” but to each their own).

This is how I’ve written two novels. Stories about strangers in foreign places, doing things I’ve (mostly) never tried. Every word is not perfect every day, and might require some rewriting, but the ideas and words flow pretty consistently.

However, ask me to write something about myself. Anything personal. Just a simple hundred words and it goes exactly like this:

1. Sit down.

2. Stare at the white wall in front of me.

3. Shift.

4. Realize my phone is still next to me.

5. Check phone. Laugh, cry and get angry at myself.

6. Take phone to other room and realize that I’m
hungry. Tired, maybe.

7. Realize I forgot to run an errand.

8. Must also wash car, re-roof house and maybe try to accomplish world peace.

Three weeks later, nada. Not a single word.

This is my dilemma. How is it that I can create another world and add everyone and everything into it, but for some reason the walls around my own existence are so high, that not even I can penetrate them?