My husband once asked me if I ever got writer's block.

"No," I answered, with the boundless confidence of fools, "because you know what the cure is? Writing."

And while, technically, yes, I usually do not get writer's block, I do come down with an ailment that's far more debilitating: writer's remorse.

For me, it's easy enough to write.

I can start at the beginning or start at the end. I can jot down a sentence that I like, even if I'm not sure where it will go, and like the frame of a house, build the rest around it.

And inspiration is rarely a problem. I can travel various pathways — stare out the window, use whatever's happening in my life or on social media or in the fevered recesses of my brain.

I've found, however, that the stumbling block often comes later.

There are times — blissful, heady times — when the words flow like water, springing from a well deep inside me, a practically unconscious source. When I read back those words, sometimes I'm confused, marveling at them, not even recognizing myself as their writer.

"Wow," I think, "I wonder who wrote that."

More often, though, I read what I've written and it's like listening to a discordant symphony. I only hear the faulty notes. They clang in my ears, insistent.

That person should seriously consider changing careers.

I can sometimes iron out the wrinkles in a messy first draft, coax the words out of their caves, gently, with treats and soft whispers. I elbow a word over, flip some paragraphs around, work it like a Rubik's cube.

I imagine the intense wave of satisfaction afterward is akin to the feeling a mechanic gets upon fixing the engine in a car.

Listen to that baby purr.

It's rarely so easy.

A former colleague suggested on Twitter that we should put a name to what happens to writers when they can't find the perfect word, le mot juste. Often, we stick in a placeholder but, returning, still can't get the right word. The deadline looms.

We try to talk ourselves into the replacement.

"Maybe that word isn't so bad after all," we say, sweet-talking ourselves. "Maybe that's exactly what I wanted to say in the first place."

That word is never what we wanted to say in the first place. It will, each time we read it, for the rest of our lives, give us writer's remorse.

There are times when it's a weak argument or concept that's the problem, when I've gone off half-cocked on something and, upon reflection, realize I was completely full of beans. I've written nonsense.

Though it can be a paralyzing feeling, viewing with fresh eyes your own clownish stupidity, it also can give you empathy when you see it happening to someone else.

"Oh, boy," you think, "that felt wrong immediately, didn't it?"

In fact, plenty of folks could use a little writer's remorse (or speaker's remorse, or tweeter's remorse, as the case may be).

Most of them, though, just give birth to their asinine thoughts and abandon them in the woods to be raised by wolves, never considering that they might need a little tending to mature into a grown-up, functional opinion.

I suppose, when it comes to writer's block, or even writer's remorse, it's not always a bad thing.

Stopping, thinking, revising and revisiting, they all can be tools and they all can serve a purpose.

Maybe, though, the next time someone asks me about writer's block, I won't get so cocky, if for no other reason than things can always get worse.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

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