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Writer’s Block is something I thought I didn’t believe in, and then I put off writing this blog post. In fact, I don’t know how to accurately portray what this is, because it’s not like you have a piece of paper that is blank in front of you if you have Writer’s Block. No, usually you have some paper with doodles, scribbles, lines that sounded good enough to write down but not good enough to commit to a project.

Y’all, Writer’s Block sucks.

And it’s not that I don’t have a lot to write. I rewrote a story over the weekend, writing maybe 15 new pages and salvaging parts of 6 pages of a 25-page story, and then I added 13 pages to one novel-in-progress and another 11 to another novel-in-progress. And I have two short stories I want to work on, add more to both novels… so, I’m not lacking there.

It’s just you, fair readers. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s the middle of second semester, and I think that brings with it a little bit of SADness, you know, Seasonal Affective Disorder. The slush and muck coating the city sidewalks and the grey skies peeking between buildings lining Michigan Avenue work together with the chill to break you down, slowly, until you exist in a spiral of working, sleeping, going to class, and curling up on the couch in your pajamas.

I have made some accomplishments recently. I took a picture as a joke that I want to be my author cover photo (see top). As VP of Recruitment for my rugby team, I got 20 new guys to show up to a snow-filled 101. I am going to see sunny California next week. I put together a little get-together for other Fiction students, and we got a good mix of people from all areas in the program (photo below).

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I got a book signed by my coworker and poetry writer (and fellow MarginAlien), Josh Young.

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And I’ve been very pleased with some of my writing.

So, I’m doing here what I suggest to anyone with Writer’s Block: just free write. Loosely associate everything. Heck, read an article, then write about it, and see if that can lead you to a story idea. We just got an email about tuition increases. The chair of our department went to see if he could get them reduced, and I might write a bit about that today. It’s nice to have someone on your side, trying to make sure tuition is manageable.

It sounds like intuitive advice: the cure for Writer’s Block is to just write. And, from doing so, sometimes you get a gem. And sometimes, you just get a blog post like this, but just know… I still love my MarginAliens.