"oh, I get it, it's the failure mode of humanism"

The thing about writer's block is that it's a signal that something you've written is wrong.

Or, maybe, that the writing you've done already hasn't effectively set you up for the writing you need to do next.

Or, maybe maybe, that you need to spend more time thinking.

This, by the way, is the same advice I'd give a pianist. The thinking:practicing ratio is roughly equivalent to the thinking:drafting ratio, and if you get it right it becomes thinking:playing in both instances.

And the thing about MELISANDE and its third song – which I've been blocked on for two weeks – was that I didn't understand what I was actually writing.

Now I do.