I stubbed my toe on the writers' block

[Listening to: Elliott Smith, "2:45 AM"]

God, this music just has an effect on me like you wouldn't believe... It opens up the very darkest corners of my mind. Why do I listen, then? To get in touch with that part of myself that I've learned to control to the point where it can lay dormant and hidden forever unless I bring it to the fore. It's the part that makes me "sadder and wiser", like the young man at the end of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

In any event, I've got a mild case of writers' block. I'm attempting to do the writing exercises for my fiction class and, for the most part, failing miserably. Sigh. All right, back to work...