Before writing this sentence, I faced a writer’s worst fear: the blank page. Whether the page is virtual or real, the prospect of having to fill that blank space with words can be rather daunting.And for most writers—those lucky enough to make a living at it excepted—no one demands that they write.Nothing happens to me if I don’t write. Someone might mention that they haven’t seen any posts from me in a while, or someone might ask me if I’m working on anything, but there are no real consequences if I don’t write.Yet I regularly sit in front of a blank screen, move my fingers a little, and fill a page. Why do I do that?I do it because I don’t want to not write. I feel like an unproductive slacker, and I’d prefer to avoid feeling like that, if at all possible.Very often I hear other writers say one or another variant of, “I should write something, but….”And then an excuse. The only thing writers do better than write is make excuses.I don’t have the time. I have other obligations. My kids keep me so busy. I need to spend some time with my spouse. I’m too tired after work. My computer is broken.Those are all valid excuses, I suppose. I could tear holes in each one of them, but that’s not my goal this time, so I’ll accept that each of those is a valid reason for not writing.But what’s completely invalid is maybe the most common excuse that I’ve seen other writers use: I don’t have anything to write about. Writer’s block.Before I started writing the concept of writer’s block fascinated me. A writer could just run out of things to say? They could essentially use up all of their words? That sounds scary. What do they do then?When I started writing it became even more worrisome. I worried that someday the words would stop coming and I’d suffer the grotesque fate of being blocked.And there are times when I’m absolutely convinced that I have nothing else to write about. Whether I’m writing this blog or writing fiction, I’m sure that I’ve just run out of words, and I’ve constructed my last sentence.However, I soon recognized a pattern. The only time that I suffer from writer’s block is when I’m not writing. When I am writing, the writer’s block magically disappears.At first glance, one might consider writer’s block similar to the case of the chicken or the egg. Am I blocked because I’m not writing, or am I not writing because I’m blocked? But the answer is clear.I’m blocked because I’m not writing.Often when I think that I have nothing to write, I’ll sit in front of the computer with the blank screen staring at me. And if I want to write a blog post, all I have to do is start writing. It doesn’t matter what I’m saying. Just write words. Those words will lead to a blog post.Grocery list. Cardboard box. Dr. Seuss hat. Those are the first three things that came to mind just now. I’m writing a post about writer’s block, but if I want to I can now follow this with a post about grocery lists (the inconvenience of forgetting a list at home, buying things that aren’t on the list, what happens when the person shopping isn’t the person who made the list), cardboard boxes (the cardboard tool kit my daughter got for Christmas, how every grocery store backroom smells the same, whether Amazon’s existence has been a boon for cardboard box companies), or Dr. Seuss hats (would a cat claw you to death before it let you put a hat on its head, is the Grinch green as a commentary on greed, what kind of hat should you wear to the different places you’ll go).Some of those are good ideas. Some of them are stupid. Maybe none of them would result in a blog post worth reading. But all of them would serve to make me suddenly not blocked.If I’m writing fiction and I don’t know what happens next, then I just have to make one character talk to another and something always happens. If I write myself into a corner and have too many different things going on, the answer isn’t to give up. The answer is to write more. Let the story and the characters work themselves out.Not everything I write will be good. It can’t be. But it exists, and that’s the first step. But it doesn’t exist until I make it exist.Do the work and then it’s done. Just like this post.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Dr. Seuss is TupacPREVIOUS POST: How To Get Your Hatchimal to Work