If you write extensively, you’ve probably had the following experience: You sit down to work on a project, but the good words don’t flow. Either you’re blocked, or you repeatedly write and erase. Four hours later, you have nothing to show for your suffering.

Question: At the end of one of these experiences, do you believe that you are nevertheless four hours closer to finishing your work? Are these hours of “fruitless” struggle a necessary component of your success? Or did you just waste four hours? Suppose you had gone down “the road not taken,” and delayed for a day? Would you have gotten a new “throw of the dice” – an independent chance for the words to fly off your fingertips?

Tell me what you think.