Writing can be fun, tiring, thought-provoking, stressful, and even a combination of all these things. Regardless if you're a natural born writer, novelist, essayist, or an amateur -- coming up with things to write can be challenging. Some people do well under pressure while others stare at their pages for hours. When we are in that situation, it becomes difficult to keep calm and focused. That is what we call a writer's block: the inability to think of what to write or how to proceed to write. Writer's block has its way with humor... when we're in most need of getting something done, we suddenly cannot concentrate or orchestrate our thoughts. There are multiple stages of a writer's block, like overconfidence, procrastination, and mental breakdowns. Everyone is different of course, but I'm positive we've all experienced at least one of these stages.
1. The Initial "I got this" Stage. We start off with a confident, positive, and hopeful attitude. "This is a piece of cake."
2. The Nobody's Perfect Stage. Our confidence level goes down as soon as we realize we aren't as innovative as we thought. We stare furiously at our computer screen in hopes that we'll come up with a brilliant idea.
2. The Procrastination Stage (aka everyone's favorite). We conclude that a stressed mind will only prolong our writing process, so, we take multiple breaks to relax our minds.
3. The "Music Might Help" Stage. We blast our rad tunes...The louder the better, of course. "Oh, I'm really feeling this song."
4. The "I don't care, let's party!!!" Stage. It get's the circulation flowing, so what harm could there possibly be?
5. The "Oh shoot, look at the time" Stage. Maybe we should actually get serious. After all, the party life ain't for everyone.
6. The Re-Read Stage. Now that we've taken some time off, we most likely forgot what our prompt requires, or what our original ideas were. "OK, I think I can work with this now. It's not so bad."
7. The Second "I got this" Stage. Then there's that sudden confidence boost that takes over our bodies.
8. The Break Down Stage. We realize we have little time left and start to panic. Cries and hopes it's all just a dream.
9. The "I don't even care anymore" Stage. We delete our document file and/or crumble up our paper.
10. The "PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER" Stage. After you do just that, you really start to focus... REALLY.
11. The Inspiration Stage. You finally come up with something and immediately feel better.
12. The "Dang, I'm good" Stage. "I knew this was a piece of cake."
13. The Final Stage. You re-read everything, and don't like how it came out...
You then repeat stages 1 through 13.
