I like this song. I thought the lyrics were pretty good.The claps feel natural, too. Loving that slipping and sliding guitar solo. I like the dynamic shifts, from the intro to the dialed back section before the end. The left channel guitar and bass are locked tight and sound great. Locked in so much that the right channel guitar feels inconsistent (in places) by comparison. But only if I try to listen to the right channel guitar. The song as a whole feels solid.

NOVEL!
Love the opening and its energy, but the verse melody and rhythm pattern becomes super repetitive and more a treadmill than a sustained rocker. Strong refrain though, feels one round too long (gotta find my way out...). Slide solo absolutely soars! I do dig it's an author speaking to/about his characters. Very novel 😉

This is really solid and I enjoyed it. Lots of good stuff in the composition, arrangement, instrumentation, performance, and production. Very good challenge fulfillment too. The writer's block idea I think is kinda just ok. Not sure if it's the idea itself or the specific lyrics inspired by it here. I think they could be more dark or urgent or emotional. I think the classic BSS "shift to a major key in the chorus even though the lyrics are not happy or upbeat" thing is not working well for me. Why would "Gotta find a way out of this dark cove" need to go over happy sounding music? Also, the ending of the chorus I think has some musical issues. Singing the same "Gotta find a way out" notes over the shift to the Em then G chords is weird, it's like the vocal melody is still in E major (Got-/E -ta/D# find/C# a/D# way/C# out/B) even though the band has changed keys to to E minor (Em chord, G chord). I think you could tweak the "of this dark cove" phrasing to sound more natural. They way it is, you almost drop the "this". It's like "Gotta find a way out (rest) _ooofff_ (this) dark _coooove_". To me it would sound smoother if you made the "of" the short word and timed the "this dark cooooove" so that this is on the 3 and dark is on the 4. I'm sure how to explain what I mean very well in text though unfortunately.