When I’m reading a writing or photography magazine, I typically highlight passages or “star” pages and articles and then write the page number on the front cover so that later when I need to go back over the information, I can turn directly to the page without having to scan through the entire magazine. I also write myself notes on the pages to remind me of certain things that I want to remember, either about the article itself or thoughts I had when reading.

A couple of weeks ago I was reading the April issue of The Writer magazine while I was eating lunch. There was a good article entitled, “How To Get Past Writer’s Block” that I enjoyed reading. At some point while reading the article I took out my pen and wrote two words on the first page, “Hogan” and “Walker.”

And now, even though I always write these notes to remind me of something, I have no idea what those two words were supposed to remind me of in the article. I’ve read through it several times, trying to recapture what my thoughts were the first time I read it and jog my memory of what those words meant in the context of the article, but I keep coming up blank.

I can’t worry about writer’s block until I overcome my memory block.