Writer's block.

What I wore: 30 days. No outfit repeats. Day 15.
Pants, Bealls. Shirt, F21. Shoes, gift. 

Yesterday I got stuck with a serious case of writer's block.

I spent the afternoon staring at my computer screen, willing little black words to magically appear on my word document, but nothing happened. I got distracted by Facebook and my email and Pinterest and blogs and by the end of the day I had only added two little sentences to my novel.

Luckily, I don't get writer's block too often but when it strikes me, it sucks.

I think part of the reason is that I'm nearing the end of my story. 

If you've ever written a piece of fiction, you know that to some degree you really become attached to your characters. At this point, I'm very attached to the two girls I'm writing about. I've given them thoughts and personalities and I've "watched" them make mistakes and experience hardships and I've "seen" them grow from those experiences. I've been working on this story almost every day for a year now (and thinking about it for years before that) and I've grown to love these characters.

That's always been my favorite thing about literature. Sometimes I feel like I can relate to fictional characters better than real live people. 

But regardless of the reason, yesterday I just didn't know what to write. Everything I thought of sounded cheesy and forced. I felt like because the end of the novel was in sight, I was rushing the plot along. I didn't feel like I was being true to the voice of the story. 

Finally, after a frustratingly unproductive afternoon, I gave up and retreated to the gym with one of my favorite books (Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld; if you haven't read it, I would highly recommend it).

And I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. 

Most of the time, reading breaks my writer's block. And yesterday it worked!

After an hour and a half at the gym, I knew exactly what direction 

I wanted to take to get to the end of my story. 

This morning I cranked out 1,500 words. 

I love that any time I'm feeling stuck, there are literally libraries full of work to inspire me.