The Myth of Writers' Block

When writers complain about having writer's block, what they are really saying is that writing is not an easy job. They are wishing they had a friend who would write whatever they need to do, in exchange for something like food or clean socks. Not beer, because their friend does not drink yet, otherwise he would definitely exchange beer for writing assignments.

However, the friend will get tired of writing some day or the other. And he cannot complain about the block, because it is something he likes doing, and has to do, and there's absolutely no way out.

So he writes several hundred words and deletes them. He then tries to write something that would reflect his current state of mind without ranting or complaining too much. He is not sure if that will work, or if the end result will actually be any good than all the bad writing he just deleted, but he wants to give this a shot.


And so it begins. He remembers a piece he recently read in an interview with a popular writer who says writers' block is just an imaginary creature invented by lazy writers who do not want the guilt of not having written upon themselves. Our hero begins his piece with a strong title, and then goes nowhere until the third paragraph where he describes his consciousness stream just before the writing of the article. In the fourth paragraph, he describes what he is thinking as he is writing the piece. The last sentence of the piece, and of the entire piece, describes itself, and forms an infinite loop of self-reference.