I got up this morning at 7 to write. I am a determined, dedicated artist, I told myself.

I opened the document on my computer containing the short story I had started last weekend and had tried to make progress on yesterday, and I felt overwhelmed reviewing it by everything I didn’t know to help make the thing move forward. What did a crew chief of a plane do on an airbase in World War II? What sort of pre- and post- flight checks were done on combat aircraft? What did an allied airbase look like in England in 1943? What were the basic dimensions of the B-17G? How did its radial engines work?

I spent an hour Googling these questions, but soon I was wandering off looking at articles unrelated to my initial questions.

And then it happened- I looked at Facebook, and then I was off, on to ESPN, and then Flickr, and then to the news online, and then I was doing a search to try and help me figure out how to turn off the darn loud trickling river drizzling into the filtration tank under the kitchen sink.

And like that, three hours were gone, and I realized I had not written a single word.

This is the behavior- the actions I am completely aware that I choose to do- that drives me crazy inside.

And I am back at square one- wanting throw this story away, like every other project I start that peters out after 1500 words.

“What is the point of wanting to write, then, if you have nothing to say?”, I ask myself. “What are you trying to accomplish here?” Because writers usually want to share stuff with other people. I end up just wasting hours of my life on a collection of words that end up in the trash.

And I am back at that spot so familiar. Paralyzed, feeling frustrated and worthless with a pen. And faced with the desire to quit again.

Resistance is a mean mental cellmate.