I needed to write a story for journalism. For about twenty minutes, I stared at a blank area of a blank piece of paper. I finally gave up and decided to watch Baywatch for some inspiration. As inspiring as Pamela Anderson is, I still didn't have an idea for a story when the show was over. I was convinced that I would never enter my "Alpha" state ever again.

I was running low on time, but I was running even lower on ideas. The harder I thought about it, the blanker my mind went. I knew if I could get a topic, I could B.S. my way through a half-page story, but unfortunately no good stories popped into my head. Sure I thought of some O.K. stories, like "The Ten Best Racquetball Courts in Southeast Asia," "Panning for Gold in your Neighbor's Backyard," or "Feeding your Family on 83 Cents a Day." These stories were decent, nut I just wasn't sure they would work for the school paper.

Well, I started to cry because I thought I failed and would never get a story when it hit me -- I had just written an article on not being able to write an article, and I was off the hook until my next story was due.

Andy Willis