That darn black line keeps blinking on the blank page, but nothing’s coming out. Whether you’re a writer by choice or obligation, we’ve all had our moments when the ideas ran dry and the words just won’t appear.

When in need of inspiration, I always turn to one of the most legend — wait for it — dary shows of all time for some inspiration.

1. Denial

You just need to take a break and wait for that lightning strike of inspiration! It’ll come to you at any moment now. You’ve got like what, 100 words down? That’s progress! Better take a break and celebrate! Writing comes so easy to you, after all.

2. Anger

This shouldn’t be this hard but, darn it, this is really hard! You write stuff all the time, text messages, emails, notes from class. For whatever reason, the English language has conspired against you and all words have decided to give you the silent treatment. You did nothing to deserve this. Universe, what gives?!

3. Bargaining

Maybe these ideas aren’t so bad after all. You have about a paragraph, but hey, if you turn up that font size a bit it’ll stretch out a little longer, right? Add double spaces in between the sentences, your professor will never know. Really, this is a pretty great paper considering what you’ve been dealing with lately.

4. Depression

This is possibly the worst piece of garbage you have ever written. Re-reading this swill is nauseating. Why did you ever think you could write at all?! Better quit now before anyone finds out you actually wrote this stuff down.

5. Acceptance

Maybe this assignment or topic didn’t pan out so well, but that doesn’t mean all of your writing is trash. You can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and take another stab at it tomorrow. After all, practice makes perfect, right? We often learn more from our failures than our successes, and if something was learned from an experience, perhaps it wasn’t a failure at all.