“Ooh, honey, those sunglasses look good with that beard.”

While I was only expecting chicken nuggets and a Diet Coke, the drive-thru attendant was unapologetically smothering me in a side of sweet sauce. As much as I appreciate a compliment, I would have been equally welcoming of a straw.

Side note: I’ve worn a face sweater intermittently for about a decade and for whatever reason, it tests quite well in the older, African American female market. Perhaps waning anesthesia was to blame, but I once had a patient of said demographic repeatedly stroke my facial locks and declare, “You’ve got a  bit of soul in you, child.” I’m confident she’d retract that statement if we ever found ourselves sharing the same dance floor.

I thanked my new Wendy’s admirer for her kind words and wished her a pleasant afternoon. As I drove away chuckling to myself, the words of a college friend popped into my head: “The weirdest things happen to you. You’ve gotta write this stuff down, Mike.”

A while back, I answered a very nosey barista that I was creating a blog. She laughed and said, “Any idiot can write a blog and most blogs die. Write often, write well, and you won’t be that idiot.”

I was on a roll for a while, writing a new post every few weeks, receiving some positive feedback, and watching site traffic increase to a few hundred unique visitors each week. But gradually, my efforts trailed off. Every few days I would promise myself that I’d crank out a few words. Instead, I only manufactured excuses. Work is so busy. Maybe I’ll go to the gym instead. Just one more beer.  Now a year has gone by and despite the surprisingly sage advice of a far-sighted barista, I am that idiot who owns a dead blog.

I watched an interview with musician Ben Folds recently as he discussed his writing process and moments of writer’s block throughout his career. He noted that the more pressure he felt to write, the more he refused to do so. In the interview, Ben refers to a song titled, “One Down” in which he recounts a publishing deal that ridiculously required him to write 4.6 additional songs to fulfill his contractual obligations by a deadline.

“I was never alright with turning in a bunch of shit,          Don’t like wasting time on music that won’t make you    proud,                                                                                                      But now I’ve found a reason,                                                     To sit right down and shit some out.” – Ben Folds

One of the pitfalls I face in my writing, much like the lyric suggests, is being uncomfortable with turning out a less than stellar product. Rather than inspiring more writing, this fear instead paralyzes the craft and pages remain blank. At best, I am a mediocre writer and should not expect to produce gold with every attempt. But I am a keen observer, and lucky enough to have material walk right up and slap me in the face.

So I suppose when I feel uninspired and at a loss for words, I just need to be reminded to sit right down and shit some out.