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Some Roman or other wrote that writer's itch is an incurable disease. The problem is that the symptoms can be very painful. The most serious of these symptoms is known as "writer's block." Writer's block is a general inability to do anything than stare at an empty sheet of paper and throw sharpened pencils at the ceiling, fiddle with the return on the typewriter, or flip from your word processing program in search of the latest distraction in which you have no interest other than getting away from a blank screen.

What is the cure? There isn't one. Remember? It's an incurable disease. There is, however, effective therapy to prevent breakouts of writer's block, or at least ameliorate the more debilitating aspects of it. The best therapy, counterintuitive as it seems, is . . . threats and violence.

By "threats and violence," I don't mean that you subject yourself to physical or mental punishment from others or even yourself. That's even more counterproductive than finding every excuse not to write, or wailing and moaning that the inspiration won't come. (Of course, that can get physically painful, too, especially if you're deeply into beating your breast with a rock, wearing hair-shirts, or self-flagellation with actual whips instead of words and thoughts.)

No, by "threats and violence," I mean the embarrassment that comes from not getting something written when you've made a commitment. This can take many forms, from the humiliation of not meeting your self-imposed promise to your blog readers to post daily the extremely interesting (i.e., boring) events of your life, to trying to dig your way through to China with the toe of your shoe as your boss asks you (in a kindly and fatherly/motherly way, of course) why in the aitch-ee-double toothpicks you didn't submit the report on time.

Paradoxically, the cure for writer's block, the inability to write, is . . . to write. Anything. Don't even think about picking a topic. Pull down a dictionary or encyclopedia, open it at random, poke your finger at the page, and write one hundred words on the subject or word that your finger lands on. You may have to do a little research, but that shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes. Oddly enough, after you've done this a few times, you'll find yourself writing much more than one hundred words. The problem then is trying to keep within the limit, and start writing quality.

Therein lies the second trap and cause of writer's block. Most people think that

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