I’ve been sitting here for two hours trying to write this. And what do I have to show for my time? Not a thing. Nothing but frustration.

I keep going back and forth from my writing pad to my word-processing screen, hoping that changing the medium will somehow make the words flow. I’ve gathered and sharpened all the pencils I could find in the house. Nothing helps. I’ve even gotten down on all fours to work on a new trick I’m teaching Molly, my Old English Sheepdog. (I’m showing her how to push a toy baby stroller across the floor with her nose.) Any diversion at all seems to hold my attention better than my writing assignment.

In a word, I’m blocked.

I call a friend, who tells me my problem is obvious: confusion over my purpose in writing, insecurity regarding my audience, inadequate knowledge of my material, failure to approach writing as a process, and perfectionism coupled with negative thinking.

The solution, she assures me, is equally obvious. Here’s her advice – not that it will do me any good:

Think of writing as a process. Writing is not a single-step event but a process with at least four distinct phases. These include pre-writing, drafting, revising, and presenting text. You’re more likely to get stuck if you try to write final copy in a single step, without, for example, first doing your pre-writing work: determining your purpose, understanding your audience, and knowing your material. Skip the first stage and you may find that the words just won’t come. When this happens, the real problem, according to my friend, is not language but approach.

Allow yourself the freedom of an imperfect first draft. Hemingway (never one to follow his own advice) was fond of saying, “The only thing that matters about your first draft is that you finish it.” In other words, just do it. Give yourself the benefit of sketching out a draft that is nothing more than a beginning. This frees you from the tyranny of perfectionism. It’s a wonderful freedom. Once you’ve created a text, you can always go back and rewrite and polish and fuss over it. The idea is to “get it written, not right.”

Develop good writing habits. My friend also told me that writing comes more easily if you write at the same time every day. Some of her friends even make appointments with themselves to protect their writing time. They believe that keeping a regular writing schedule helps their minds and bodies develop a kind of rhythm, so that when it comes time to write they are more likely to have the energy and concentration that writing demands. Some even reserve a certain place in their home or office where they do nothing but write. They don’t balance their checkbooks there, and they don’t talk on the phone there. When they sit in that certain place, they write.

Think positively – about yourself and about your ability to write. The novelist Gail Godwin once told my friend about a trick she uses to silence that inner critical voice that we all hear sometimes. Godwin thinks of this self-censoring tendency in terms of Freud’s notion of the Watcher at the Gate, a little creature that sits perched on the edge of your subconscious mind. Even as your thoughts are first taking shape, this creature says things such as, “Stupid. Unoriginal. Doesn’t sound right. Don’t let it out.” When Godwin hears this inner voice, she looks the Watcher at the Gate right in the eye and says, “Be quiet. I know you’re there. You have a legitimate role to play, but you’re too early. First I create. Then I revise.”

What is it about writing that makes it so hard to write that first sentence? There may be as many answers to that question as there are writers, but I suspect the most common cause of writer’s block is perfectionism: trying to create perfect copy in the first draft.