Writer’s block

The block is often a decision you are refusing to make. Lower the stakes of the next sentence until a decision becomes possible.

Sometimes the well is empty because you are tired, or because the scene is wrongly conceived and some wiser part of you will not write it. Those are different problems. Tiredness needs a rest or a smaller task. A wrongly conceived scene needs a decision: what does this person want, and why can’t they have it yet?

If you cannot tell which problem you have, drop the target until it is almost insulting. Fifty words. A description of the room using only sounds. The same conversation written as an argument. You are not trying to be good. You are trying to move the file forward so that tomorrow is a continuation and not a restart.

Skip the scene that has frozen you. Write the scene after it, once you know how the frozen one must end, and then come back. Novels are not knitted only in one direction. You are allowed to write chapter eighteen before chapter nine if chapter nine is a locked door and chapter eighteen is open.

A long block is sometimes the book telling you that you do not believe the premise. If you would not read it, you will not finish writing it. Change the premise until you would miss your bus to see what happens, or admit that this is not the book and start the one you are actually thinking about in the queue.