Writer’s block, it’s a killer. In fact, it can be so detrimental to your spirit that you look for anything to give you inspiration. First it’s a magazine, then maybe a newspaper and if one really is desperate, MTV always can help.

But then there are the times when you have to bust out the real gems of the procrastinating/writer’s block world. Things like cleaning your bathroom and eating more food than your tummy can hold both act as wonderful cures for writer’s block, and they both make others shake their heads in disbelief. And yet, we all have done it before.

So, it’s that time when your first paper of the year is due in a few days and you make every attempt to write a thorough analysis. Heck, you even went to the library and weeded your way through its undecipherable maze.

“Who is this Dewey Decimal and why must he mock me,” you yell.

The information now sits right in front of you to become a masterpiece of literary delights and yet you can only type your name on the screen. So, you clean your bathtub and toilet, and you might even vacuum the living room, but still nothing.

Then you sit down in front of the computer with a two-pound bag of peanut lovers’ Chex Mix and a Coke, yet still there is no inspiration. Instead you find yourself diving back into that bag of salty goodness, picking around the insane amount of peanuts while you try to find those elusive corn chex. Because we all know how wonderful those corn chex are.

The next thing you know it’s midnight and all you have done is your introductory paragraph, which will be nothing like its current form in another two hours because you are solely writing to put words on the page, which in turn makes you feel better about yourself.

Of course, deep down you know that what you have written is no good, but you continue to pretend that it was brilliant and you slowly mold the rest of that seven-page odyssey into the world of written communication to sound like you remotely have a clue about your subject.

It is at this point that you realize you should have picked a topic that you knew about, instead of an in-depth look at how architecture and the environment coexist. After all, you are not an architect.

And just when you feel like nothing is going to happen to improve the paper that you now have slaved over for seven hours, you get set back some more by that blasted Encore channel which has decided to show “Dirty Dancing.”

Now that trait which Hamlet made famous, procrastination, has jumped all over you and you hope that Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey will provide you with the creative genius that you need to write your paper.

Two hours later you find yourself back at the computer and ready to pump out the remaining four pages of crap that will support your thesis statement. Those four pages oddly come together rather quickly and whether that is due to your extreme exhaustion or the the 64 ounces of caffeine-driven Coke pulsating through your veins, you aren’t sure.

You are just happy that the paper is almost over.

And that is when you realize that your works cited page still has to be typed. Luckily though, no creative genius is needed for that page, just a lot of patience and determination.

Thus, the moral of the story is that when it comes to papers, we all enter that world of writer’s block. However, there is one surefire way to combat writer’s block, so that a crazy night of Peanut Lovers’ Chex Mix and “Dirty Dancing” (the end scene is my favorite) doesn’t come your way.

When you are assigned a paper, pick a topic that you know about, don’t pick one that you have to start from scratch with. Stephen King writes creepy, yet inviting books because he is creepy and inviting.

Once you have your topic picked and the research done, your own prior knowledge will help you determine how to give the paper structure and meaning.

Other than that, I suppose writer’s block is an inevitable part of life and one that will cause many more late nights staring at the computer where I try to figure out some other new way to create a header or footer.

And sure, writing a paper really can make you sad, but it could be worse. It could be an actual test that you would have had to study for.