Oh, my god. Every day. I listen to a lot of podcasts about artists, screenwriting and stuff. Some people say they don’t get writer’s block. I’m like, “What the fuck? How?” I get writer’s block every day. I get stuck all the time because you always hit a road block. You think what you planned before was going to work out so smoothly and then you start writing and it doesn’t quite flow the way you want it to, or the structure may not be working. Happens all the time. But for me, I have a lot of people I trust and can bounce ideas off of… I’ll send the script to other filmmakers and ask their opinions. I have a lot of people that I trust and that I can really talk things out with. I think the thing that’s helped me the most is being able to talk it out.

I had really bad writer’s block when I wrote Strangers. I didn’t really write about the stuff that I wanted to write about because I hadn’t admitted it to myself. And I think sometimes writer’s block is about stuff like that. You’re not being honest with yourself. I finally broke through it, but I did so by writing an incredibly apocalyptic record that was very symbolic. I told Randall I wrote a record about the end of the world, and he said, “I don’t think this record is about the end of the world. I think this record is about the end of your world.” And I was just like, “Fuck you.” But at the same time he was really right. It definitely was an anxiety record.

There are a few. As far as getting started, lots of people who really want to make a song have figured that out already. I very rarely get asked for advice from people who have never written a song and want to know how to get started. It’s usually about getting stuck or feeling like they’ve painted themselves into a corner. I remember getting asked a question from this one kid who was probably 13 years old. He wanted to know if it was okay to always write in A minor. He liked writing classical piano pieces and his favorite key was A minor. My favorite key is also A minor, so he wanted to know if that was okay.

No, I guess I don’t really worry about that. The answer to a creative block is just to do another creative thing. To me a creative thing is almost anything. So like, literally, if I’m writing and can’t think of anything, I’ll just start moving my fingers typing, sometimes not even words. Just going through the artificial surface motion of it will get your brain going.