Four years in, I was at a crossroads. I wanted to carve my own path as I worked with young people, earned a comfortable living, and followed my dream of writing—but I wasn’t sure how to do it all.

Voice is connected to personal experience and our ability to make meaning of that experience. In other words, it’s what makes us human.

The abyss is not specific to professional writers—students experience it, too, often getting stuck before they’ve even started a writing assignment.