I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write.
The thin black bar stares, blinking at me. “What are you doing, thinking you’re a writer. You have to be able to write, dummy. Go back to Netflix, or something, loser.”
Come on, Ray, get yourself together! Just write anything! Anything!  I’m already 10,000 words into my novel, and suddenly I’ve run dry. Come on! This one was gonna be the good one! The one you would never be able to show people! You could say you were a writer and have proof! No one ever published a blank page.
“How do people do this? My plots never last more than 30k! Even with subplots!” I bang my head on the desk. “I can’t do anything right!” I moan. The black ink inside me bubbles, threatening to poison me if I don’t let it out, and I sit back up, ready to conquer, but I am yet again encouraged to print what I have written thus far and use it as a surrender flag. It wouldn’t be useful for anything else. “Go away!” the little bar is saying. “There are already so many authors out there that have actually written something! What makes you think that you can beat them out for a place at Barnes & Noble if you can’t even write in full sentences?”
  I’m scrapping the bottom of my brain now, looking for any idea I can find. I pick up dusty old pieces of writing advice: “write what you know,” “make it a present for someone,” “I before E except after C,”- Oh wait that last one’s not helpful for this. I open up a new tab to the NaNoWriMo site, and refresh the challenge generator. “Add a character who only speaks in iambic pentameter,” It suggests. I face palm. Thanks for the help.
  I lay my head on the desk, my finger on the track pad. Then again, I think, it would be so much easier to just open another tab. You could always watch a little television, or something. The black bar nods. You’ll have time to work on this later. Tomorrow you can write. Today you should just relax. You’ve been on a roll for two weeks now. Give yourself a break! Stop checking the stupid word count. Honestly, it would be so much easier to give this whole writing farce up. You would save so much time! Come on, now. You don’t really think you can make it, anyway.
  The black bar smiles, slowing down. “That would be good. You could go to college after all. Maybe you could become a neurosurgeon. You could help people as messed up in the head as you are. It would make your parents so proud…” That snaps me out of it. I slap myself in the face and take a sip of mountain dew.
“Screw law school. Screw my parents.” I massage my neck a little. “Let’s go, Watwood. You’re a writer.”
But it’s hard to be a writer when you’re staring at a blank page. Bullies. I crack my knuckles, and start typing.