God, it's so white.

I've been staring at it for over fifteen minutes, Fifteen minutes today, that is. Last night it was another twenty and last week it happened three times, an hour at a time.

It's so white, the page. So blank.

And the damn cursor keeps blinking - mocking me like a small preschooler with a handful of dirt and a sackful of taunts.

So, what do I write? Because I've been stuck on this scene for over three weeks, unable to get past the character driven moment and into the action I so desperately want to choreograph. It's a pivotal scene, to be sure -- one that needs to contain certain elements essential to the story, but still...it's just so white.

My mind, that is. The words don't come and the ideas dance away from the stage of my creative space. The pallette lays bare and I'm simply unable to find the words. I'm grasping. I'm empty. I'm stuck.

I'm blocked.

More and more these days, I find myself in the company of writers. Whether at the bar, at a convention or chatting on the internet, my circle includes poets, novelists, screenwriters, comic book scribes and journalists. Everyone I know is working on a book, a play, a movie, a pilot or a dirty limerick. And often, I hear of these mad, insane beast ... this horrible, terrible affliction that causes these would-be Whitmans and struggling Salingers to tear their hair and kick their cats with frustration.

Writer's Block.

That invisible wall and inaccessible window preventing you from plucking literary pearls from the hoard of Ideaspace. The white static filling your head, stopping you from moving onto a third act, crafting a particularly tricky piece of dialogue or plotting an eight page story. An easy to use, common to say reason for not being able to just sit down and write the damn thing.

But does it exist?

Mark Waid once said that writer's block is simply your brain's way of telling you that the story isn't going the way it should, and perhaps you need to move back a step and try another direction. Using the excuse "I just can't think of anything" and turning off your computer is no answer. You need to rethink, replot and try another angle. If you try to hammer a faulty bolt into a piece of wood and the wall begins to splinter, you don't say you have Carpenter's Block and walk away: You try a better bolt.

Writer's Block, in my opinion, is a myth. There's absolutely no such thing. Sure, a writer can get stuck on a story and spend hours trying to find his or her way down the trail, but eventually, that writer is going to hit the clearing if he or she tries enough paths.

Lazy writers use the Block as a way out -- a tool that allows them to avoid putting in long hours expending brain muscle, time and energy figuring out what the next word or scene is going to be. It's the out that lets them walk away and watch television or go get pizza with their friends, letting the thread of the tale slip further through their fingers to the point that they're uninterested in sitting down at the computer to try and break it with a sledge hammer.

Recently, I attended a comic book convention where quite a number of aspiring writers and artists introduced themselves and showed me their work. Most of them were excited, ready to sit down and start their next opus and all of them regaled me with tales of traveling the road to getting their story written, drawn and produced. One of these hopeful Hemingways, however, decided to use my time to bitch and moan about how hard it was and that maybe, possibly, he'd be able to get a short story or minicomic done if he could figure out his plot, decide on what genre he wants to write in and assorted nonsense that made me roll eyes to Heaven and cluck my tongue. I encounter many of these types of writers, all talk and no dialogue. They get inspired by the work they read and the stories their friends pump out and decide to write... until they realize that being a writer isn't just talking about it; there's work involved. So they get five or six pages done... maybe begin researching a project... and then get frustrated and go watch "The O.C." When their friends ask how their novel or comic is coming along, the off handedly reply with "oh, I'm just stuck right now. I'll get back to it soon."

And, of course, they never do.

While attending the aforementioned con, someone quipped to me, "I think most people are in love with the idea of writing, rather than the act of it." These are the stuck. Those who don't push and twist and shake and challenge themselves and rewrite until something pops, clears and they can move forward into the third act. These are the men and women of the Blockosphere. The Blockheads, as I call them. And they are living a lie.

So how can we help them get past the barricade?

As was mentioned above, one way is to try a new direction. Look at your story and see where it was that the writing began to bog it down. Is there any way to try a second option, a new direction that might achieve better results?

If not, I might suggest just writing. Keep moving, push through the mud and static until you break on through into the light, however how choppy the current might be and how messy the results. Then go back and really read what it was you wrote and see what you can do to edit, fix and rewrite it. Sometimes I find myself with a decent story if I just keep on pushing. But then, many people believe this is a bad, bad, naughty writer idea.

Might I suggest, then, walking away for a bit? When writing BROWNSVILLE , there were moments where I could not see the light at the end of the bullet riddled tunnel so I put the manuscript away and wrote something else. Something fun and light, I believe, and as far away from historical true crime as I could. If I recall, it was a great little comedy about a talking rhinoceros hitman and his gangsta sidekick. And you know what? The clouds inside my head opened up and after a week, I was ready to reopen my research notes and begin the second half of the original book. Walk away. Get some distance. Well-established writers have often advised me to simply stop writing for a few days and you'll be come back with seven new ideas, raring to get them down on paper.

And so on. And so forth. There are literally hundreds of ways to chip away the white wall and splash brand spanking new words up on the page if only you give it a try. If for some reason you found that ,while out for a night, the zipper on your pants got rusted and stuck something tells me you'd bend, twist, turn, jiggle and pull that zipper in hundreds of different ways until you got those chinos down. You wouldn't throw your hands up in frustration, walk away and complain that you hit some sort of zipper block and you'll get out of the pants sometime later on. I mean, what if you have to go number two?

Eventually those pants are coming off. And eventually, that story will get written. No one says it's going to be Shakespeare's Second Coming or even publishable in your college writing journal... but it will get done. You'll get past the static if you only try.

Quit surfing the Blockosphere. Don't let them tell you that Writer's Block is a common ailment and, like Matt Madden's "word lice" ridden character Lance , can be cleared up by writing with a Number 2 pencil and taking pills. There's only one way to break through the block, my aspiring Asimovs.

Write something. Anything. Everything. Lift the sledge hammer. Push through the static. Find yourself a new path or a workable bolt.

And the only way to escape the Blockheads, filling the lanes on your cruise through Ideaspace?

Run them down.

And keep on moving.

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BIG POND is a collective column that begins with ideas and continues with opinions. Each column focuses in on my musings about writing for the comic book, film and television industry and then gives way to opinions on the week's topic by a diverse group of writers.

This week, we're joined in the pond by naughty, naughty writers Josh Fialkov and Ed Cunard, both who have hit the wall within various areas of writing - whether for fun, profit or revenge.

Josh: "Writer's Block is bullshit. Seriously.

"And I have it right now, and I know it's bullshit. I got work to do, but I have enough distractions that five minutes in front of my laptop tells me that I'd rather be doing the other stuff.

"Here's the thing. That's fine. I write pretty much non-stop 7 days a week. Drafting, redrafting, spec-ing, researching, lettering, editing, and more. So, I take a day or two off? That's actually good, I think. It's sort of a self-imposed writer's block.

"Here's the bad version of it. If you haven't done ANYTHING. Have a project that you've been working on for "3 or 4 years" and just need ONE. MORE. GAME. of Resident Evil before getting to that scene that's been troubling you. Writers write. Assholes pretend to.

"I met a guy this weekend who tells me his story. 'I can't find an artist, I've been looking everywhere. This project is so AWESOME and I just can't find an artist who'll commit to do the first five pages.'

"'Do you have any other projects going on?'

"'I can't. I have Writer's Block because I'm so deep in this project.'

"So, I went on to tell him the story of how I got Elk's Run made. I started with Elk's Run three years ago, and couldn't find an artist. So, I started doing a web comic. That web comic gained some success, and led me to do mini-comics, those mini-comics gained even more success, and led me to do my anthology Western Tales of Terror, and that, in turn, led me to Elk's Run. The moral of the story, do SOMETHING. He looks at me and goes, 'Yeah, but this story's REALLY kickass!'

"Guess what? It doesn't matter, because no one'll ever see it."

Ed:"Writer's block doesn't exist--it's a symptom, not a cause. If someone's coughing up stinky lung chunks, it's generally a good idea to diagnose the actual problem than to sit back, squeeze the smelly things and take a deep whiff.

"Neil hits on a good point--most people who want to write don't actually, you know... want to write. They don't see it, of course--how could they? They're writers. Writers who don't write, but writers, man. The thing they want isn't the joy of the process, or showing the world they have something to say. What they want most is to have the world see something to which their names are attached. They want to seem interesting to people they chat up. I think we all know one of these people--big ideas, big desires to share those ideas, but no real desire to make those ideas happen.

"I'm not trying to say that these people have no hope. Some, I'm sure, will learn, whether through people throwing the empty promises back in their faces or suddenly realizing, 'holy fuck, but isn't this fun?' Hell, I learned, and I'm generally obtuse. My dirty little secret is that, like many fourteen-year-old boys, I started writing to impress a girl. Somewhere along the way, though, I forgot about the girl and kept with the writing.

"I'm not a comic book writer, and have no plans to be one at the present. However, readers of this column are probably at least hoping to write comics of their own one day (if they haven't started already). A suggestion for those blocked up times? Find some mental Draino. Say comics are your thing, and you've been working on one or two (or even three or more) stalled scripts, and you just can't seem to get any further. That's blockage, right? When your pipes at home get clogged, you don't keep trying to force more water through the pipe hoping it's going to work--you break out the gooey, clingy stuff and let that snake it's way through the hairballs and whatever else is sticking up the works. It could be the rhythm of CAPTION > DESCRIPTION > DIALOGUE has you tripping over the format. Put it away. Start typing prose. Write a letter (an actual letter, not some one-line reply e-mail). Break out a composition book and write a poem. Throw something else down that pipe, because the water isn't cutting it."

The column doesn't end there, though - head on over to the The Big Pond forum at the Scryptic Forums and add your opinion to the Pond! Join the collective column and talk writing with myself, this week's contributors and the rest of the Scryptic writers.

My thanks to Josh and Ed for jumping in, pushing through last minute deadlines and filling this page. Check out their words at their sites and you'll know that neither are Blockheads.

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Neil Kleid won the Xeric grant for NINETY CANDLES, an experimental graphic novella, and his first graphic novel, BROWNSVILLE, (with artist Jake Allen) debuts from NBM Publishing in 2006. He is currently writing URSA MINORS!, a four issue comedy mini-series for Slave Labor Graphics. A graphic designer by day, Neil harbors notions of writing full time. Weep for him.

Joshua Hale Fialkov is the creator of WESTERN TALES OF TERROR and ELK'S RUN, the critically acclaimed indie hit. He has a story in the upcoming FUSED! TALES from Boom! Studios, and the second half of ELK'S RUN is currently half way complete, now being released by Speakeasy Comics.

Ed Cunard is a giant hypocrite. He barely posts to his blog, "The Low Road", anymore. It could be because he's working on other things, but those aren't anything the internet would find interesting.