It's the average December evening. Christmas lights are being delicately strung throughout the country, presents are being purchased, and get-together plans are being set in motion. Even though it's a special time across different parts of the world, there's no particular inspiration in the air. Not some miraculous experience that begs for documentation. No wondrous moment to be described through honeyed words and thought-out similes.

Still, as I sit in curled knot on the couch, aimlessly flipping through the most recent National Geographic edition, it suddenly hits me. I bolt upright and lung for my journal, which I realize in short-lived dismay is in the other room. No problem. I grab the nearest pen and paper, check the back to make sure it's nothing too important, and scribble a down quick thought, which of course grows into thoughts of what could be a full-blown novel.

From the first contact of pen to paper, my hand can't seem to move fast enough. Ideas spark and spiral through my head, swirling and mixing and jumbling together. Plot-lines and time periods and character traits jump out from shadows that I hadn't known were there only moments ago. I scratch down what I can during the brief but meaningful moment of creative inspiration. As soon as I've gotten down the essentials, I lean back and survey the scribbled disaster zone that used to be a blank slip of paper. Still, it's a good start.

Being a writer comes with a strange mindset that tends to involve weeks of indecision and very brief flashes of what feels like sudden genius. Writer's block is definitely a real thing, at least in my experience. It's a hard process to work through, especially when any thoughts you can spare are focused on grades, relationships, and typical high school drama. It's frustrating and disheartening. You can feel incompetent or like a failure in something you love to do. Luckily, once you break through that dam, the flood of ideas that were gathering behind it are flowing freely again. Sometimes everything moves so quickly that it's hard for you to keep up. Hence the "grab-the-nearest-writing-implement-and-go-for-it" method. Because unfortunately, as great as your ideas might be, they mean nothing if they stay in your head forever.

I can't tell you how many ideas I've had that are gone now because I procrastinated and didn't ever write them down. This is a process I grudgingly refer to as 'writer's flake'. It's what happens when a sudden, great idea pops up out of nowhere and for some reason (whether it's the time, the place, or the mindset), you don't end up writing it down and 'flake' on it. This seems to happen to every writer I know an absurd amount of times. I have friends who think up brilliant ideas when they're in the shower, during an exam, or even in the middle of the night. Sometimes, you'll think of something great, but some nagging thought in the back of your head tells you that it's stupid, or poorly thought out, or not worth your time. This is the absolute worst case of writer's flake. Insecurity can topple even the best of us, and it's something that's hard to recognize when your writing is so close to your heart. It's even harder to fight though if you don't have a good support structure around what you want to write, whether you rely on friends, family, or personal encouragement.

Writer's block and writer's flake are equally hard to deal with for very different reasons, but both prevent you from writing, which is the biggest struggle of all. Fortunately, in my experience, both seem to have the same cure: writing even more. During a particularly hard bout of writer's block, sometimes it helps me to just write down whatever's going through my head at the moment. It doesn't have to good, it just needs to get the creative juices flowing. There are plenty of great sites with wonderful and intriguing prompts to help you get on your feet. You can always go back and revise, or even completely scrap whatever you were working on (we've all been there). Take just ten minutes and do your best. It will be enough. The same goes for writer's flake. Regretting not writing something down is amongst the worst feelings in the world. If you're not in a good physical place, remember key phrases to make a mental map back to your idea. If the time isn't convenient, do the same. But get them down. Those ideas are worth it, I promise.

Regardless of what writer's illness you suffer from, your writing is yours and it's important to you. It matters and it is valuable. Writing can take you across the world, through oceans and skies, and still come back for more. It's our way of sharing our identities and thoughts with the world around us. It's something amazing and painful and magical and precious.

And you are a writer. That makes you the most special one of all. So sit down. Write something.