"I thought of all the things I'd like to say. Cramped up and couldn't write a word all day."

Does that lyric hit home to anyone who considers themselves a writer or what? Writer's block, or otherwise known as the most inconvenient and annoying thing on the planet. It has plagued all of us multiple times in our lives. It leaves you sitting there going....well, I mean it leaves you feeling as if...

I can't begin to tell all of you the amount of projects I've left unfinished because of writer's block. Songs, poems, stories all left hanging in the middle of phrases and dialogue because of the inability to process my thoughts and express them in a manner I see fit. The amount of characters that I had so painstakingly created and shaped to imperfections in quirks, left behind because a case of writer's block set in and I lost all motivation to go back and pick up in their world.

The worst part is, there's no cure for it. At least, I've never heard of one. I play the waiting game and do other things with my life and maybe if I can get my mind off my writing, the idea will come, my project will again have life, and I'll feel like a good little worker bee again.

The idea for this article came from writer's block, I kid you not. I've been busy at work all week, anxious over the thought of what I could write about this week that actually means something and that someone may relate to. I was in the middle of cooking a steak, cursing my writer's block when I said out loud, "I'm literally going to tell them all about this." I'm pretty sure my manager thought I went mad because there was no one else in the kitchen at this point in the evening. What better way to vent my frustration about writer's block and potentially break through it than by writing about it. The thought was, if I can write about it and somewhat get the point across of this awful horrible mental block, then maybe I can bust out of it and find my writing groove again.

Not everyone talks about writer's block because it is so infuriating. But the worst part about having it, the distractions. Suddenly, everything seems that much more interesting. The dirty clothes on the floor mom has been telling you to pick up for days, looking at your arm hair, or keeping up with a sports championship in a sport you don't really enjoy watching (I'm looking at you, NBA Finals). Music is becomes too much, even if it's just instrumental, it sweeps me up and I get lost in the sounds and feelings of that song. Sometimes it feels like a lost cause and I should just give up, but giving up never solves anything. So I become determined to best it.

I'm very critical of how I write. I've written things before, including articles for The Odyssey and after it's published and I've re-read it, I'll absolutely hate it and feel mortified because I think I've embarrassed myself. My overly harsh critique of my own writing is another reason I feel like writer's block has taken up an almost permanent residence in my head.

I've tried to write through it, as stupid as that may sound to someone, but it's what I do. I'll just take words, feelings, pieces of ideas and write them down and start stringing them together like people do when they try to connect specific severe events to a killer with red yarn. It can become chaotic. Other times I'll go for a walk and try to imagine what a stranger would see or think about in those surroundings.

Sometimes it works! I'll get a fresh lead and just start busting out piece after piece and feel very confident with the work I have created. I'll write until my favorite pens are out of ink and I am forced to buy more. Sometimes, and by sometimes I mean almost every time I become afflicted once again by writer's block, and I guess that's why I never finish anything I...