We’ve all been there. The cursed writer’s block, when no matter what you type it just doesn’t sound how it should, or you are completely lost in a pit of nothingness for inspiration. The stages of writer’s block are realer than anything, and a curse to all writers alike.

1. Typing, Retyping, and Retyping

It starts out simple. Whether it be a sentence, a word, or a letter it just doesn’t seem to fit. So, you continue to type out the story hoping it’ll somehow fit. But it still doesn’t. You go back and erase it, and retype it. It looks good for a moment, and so you continue on writing. But after a few moments, you can’t seem to take your eyes off that one section. You erase it all and stare as the cursor blinks at you on your now blank page.

2. Agitation

Your eye starts to twitch. You can’t really put your finger on why you can’t figure this out. It’s simple, you know this story, character, or narrative better than anyone else. It’s your story, so why on earth can’t you figure it out? You narrow your eyes at the cursor, you will figure this out… just how?

3. Confusion

You’ve officially accepted you have no idea what your typing about, but you have no idea why. This only happens every once in a while, and you’ve always managed to push through. This time is different though, you can feel it in your bones. While this stage can be confused with the second stage, it’s a deeper state. The confusion hurts your brain. This isn’t what as planned, you know what you wanted for your story. You just don’t know how to get it where you want.

4. Realization

It hits you: you have writers’ block. You rejoice, you know it’ll pass! …You just have to figure out how to pass the time. Maybe you try to write through it, and this method very much works for many people. But, we

are humans and we like the next stage way too well.

5. Taking a Break

In other words, procrastination. But you tell yourself it’s a break from the piece just so you can regroup all your thoughts. You need it to get over what you’ve just truly accepted. You take to Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr and whatever social media site will waste the most time because you don’t want to touch the story.

6. Prompts

Somewhere along the way in the process of the last stage, you’ve ended up on Pintrest. You realize you could find inspiration here. You begin your search looking through cool photos and artsy things. You try to find

ways to incorporate them into your writing. Then you move on to word prompts. Anything from quotes to questions, you just want something to help you. Anything.

7. Anger

But like always, nothing stands out. You’ve past agitation, you’re enraged. This whole time you’ve been working for some of the best storytelling of your entire life, and all of a sudden, your brain just decides it doesn’t want to function that day, week, or month. It just wants nothing to do with your writing. Throw a pillow, a stuffed animal, or a scream into your mattress. Just don’t throw your phone or computer, you’ll really have writer's block after that.

8. Giving Up

You finally give up. That’s really all. You accept that you have writers’ block and that there is nothing you can do about it. Might as well just move on with your life and go sit down and binge a TV show.

9. Despair

It’s final. You’ve come to terms that this piece of writing is just not going to get finished ever. Your best option is to just lay down and wallow in self-pity. At least here you could miraculously have some idea to how to continue your piece of writing.

10. Inspiration

And then it happens. Out of the blue, you realize what was wrong. You’re so excited nothing can stop you from containing your excitement. You type so fast your words run together, and everything now makes sense. That one little fly on your window seemed to release all of your creative juices. That singular hair on your arm or the way you banged your head on the table from despair; you’ve been enlightened. Somehow the gates of Heaven have opened, and you can suddenly write again.

11. A Novel is Born

Nothing can stop you. You’re invincible. You write not only the entire book, but you start its sequel. Even if it wasn’t meant to have one; you still start one. This is the new beginning, and you feel alive.

12. Repeat...

Everything is perfect again! You’re typing away, you’ve gotten to these perfect characters, a beautiful plot, and then suddenly… that sentence, word, or letter just doesn’t seem to fit right in your piece again. Let the endless cycle of writers’ block begin again.