Lather, rinse, and repeat

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: graduate student life is pretty swank. Okay, okay. Yes, there's the teaching and the writing and the researching and whatnot, all for very (VERY) little money. But you pretty much get to set your own hours, you work on something you love (presumably, otherwise why are you here?), you don't have a pointy-headed boss breathing down your neck, and nobody ever demands to see your TPS reports. But there's one catch: you have to produce. By that I mean, you have to DO the research, WRITE the dissertation, and so on and so forth. Lather, rinse, and repeat as needed. And I have to say that one of the most daunting aspects of the whole writing process (and I think this is true for writers everywhere, academic or not) is the blank page. The blank page that stares back at you, scornfully, with it's blinking cursor. Blink, blink, blink. It almost says, "Go on, write something! You know you have to write eventually. WRITE, DAMN YOU!" Or at least that's what mine says. Maybe I should switch software. But then I'd get the Jewish mother software: "You never write anymore! What, it would kill you to write a single sentence? Fine, ignore me! Maybe you'll miss me when I'm dead."