HUMOR DISCLAIMER: This article is intended as satire and uses the tools of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule in the context of contemporary politics, current trends, recent school events, and other topical issues.

by Drew Scott ‘20 

Have you ever tried to write something for school, but the gears in your head just won’t turn, so you pour lubricant in your ears to try and make the gears turn, but you just end up being brought to the hospital? Have you stared for hours at a blank white Google Doc, your retinas being seared from the bright white screen, and absolutely regretting every single decision you made in life that led you here? I hate to break it to you, but you might be suffering from writer’s block. But what really is writer’s block anyway?

Well I’ll tell you what it is. It’s one of the worst damn things to have. Writer’s block varies in length from about maybe 20 minutes to what feels like centuries of agonizing pain. Writer’s block manifests itself in different ways for everyone, and from my experiences, is equivalent to going through the 5 stages of grief. First you’ve got denial, where you sit at your desk and optimistically say, “I’ve got this down!” In reality, it’s been half an hour and you’ve only managed to write one sentence.

Next comes anger, which manifests itself as you throwing a punch at your monitor, as if it was to blame for your lack of progress on that 50 point essay of yours. Next comes bargaining, in which you seriously consider contacting the dead from an ouija board to help the writing process. Then there’s depression, where you lay your face down on your keyboard and absolutely soak it in your tears, fueled by lack of inspiration and despair. And finally, acceptance; where you just lie down on the ground, not even think about writing, and come to terms with the fact that you are most certainly not going to get this assignment done in any sort of timely manner known to man.

But even with this key knowledge about writer’s block and how it works, don’t think that’s going to stop it. It’s always going to be breathing down your neck like an overbearing parent who says they want the best for you but tends to gaslight you consistently to get what they want. So really, the only thing you can do against writer’s block is to just write even more. Now that doesn’t sound like it would help, but hear me out for a sec. Completely BSing something for a while will eventually turn into something good, because the more you write something, the more ideas you actually start to generate. I would know, I’ve been doing it this whole time!