1. Open a document and try writing a funny list of what to do when you get writer’s block.
2. Congratulate yourself on having an idea.
3. Realize you’re up to three and you haven’t really thought of any more.
4. Pet your cat.
5. Check Twitter.
6. Sip your coffee and realize it got cold.
7. Microwave your coffee as your husband tells you, yet again, that he thinks that’s gross.
8. Look at your “to do” list and find you can’t read your own handwriting.
9. Hey look you’re at nine!
10. Make an appointment at a new hair salon because you just wanna shake it up a little.
11. Immediately feel guilty for ditching your regular hairdresser for just this time.
12. Okay appointment made, back to the list!
13. Consider the ridiculous nature of something called “writer’s block” in the first place. You are not a mechanic. There is not a job in front of you that can be completed by a set of tasks in a certain order that you can accomplish. You almost miss when you had a job like that, where you could just put on headphones and upload a bunch of photos into the backend of a website, or do light coding until three hours had gone by and you barely even knew. Now, it’s just you and your thoughts, and time is money. The only thing blocking you is you, but there’s no way to change it. Or maybe there is, by releasing yourself and understanding that the brain is not a content machine. There will be days when you don’t do your best work, or any work at all, and that’s okay. You’re still thinking of things, and that’s still work, even if you don’t get a single word on the page. Forgive yourself.
14. Oh hey look 14 that’s probably good enough.