Writer's block is real. Amanda Polick believes in it, and she's in it right now.

She's deep in revisions on her novel: the one she's been writing for years, the one she wrote 30,000 words of in the wrong direction in 2024, the one she finished a rough draft of last year that she's now going back through with brain fatigue and a spring that got away from her. Instead of hiding from it, she brought it here.

In this episode:

• The one-page flash fiction exercise that gets her out of her own head when she's too stuck to touch the actual manuscript
• Why she thinks she's lost the habit of romanticizing her writing process — and why she wants it back
• Olafur Arnalds, instrumental music, and the case for being bored more often
• What she's noticing in the novel she's currently reading about backstory dumps, exposition monologues, and the things she's actively trying not to do in her own book
• Why consuming the same content over and over is part of what creates the block in the first place
• The honest truth about writer's block: sometimes it's real, sometimes it's procrastination, and sometimes you just have to sit down and do the work anyway

Perfect for: writers in the thick of a long project who need someone to say out loud that it's hard, and anyone who's been calling it writer's block when they might just need to sit back down.

Find Amanda: @amandapolick | amandapolick.com