WRITER'S BLOCK.

I can't imagine there is a writer who has not experienced writer's block. In the days when paper was used, fear of 'the blank page' captured the condition. There ought to be a contest for the number of ways  a writer avoided sitting down to confront this page. Or nowadays, 'the blank screen.'

What would your list look like?
Mine might involve:

• making a phone call. For me this is usually a terrible solution that distracts me further from work and creativity, but wonderful for that ongoing sense of isolation that occurs when facing the page. 
• Putting the dishes away. Well, after all, like the laundry, the ironing, making the beds, taking out the garbage, it needs to be done. Just not now!
• Going for a walk. For me usually a wonderful solution in that ideas begin to flow then. I usually wait too late to take this walk and have gone through all my other time wasting techniques to no avail. When following a more ongoing routine than I do now, I took an early morning walk and then another late in the day when I wanted to make the transitions in and out of writing. Lax as this may sound, it created a structure and discipline of its own.
• This summer when I was on crutches and couldn't walk I took up baking when I wasn't sure where or how to start on some piece of writing. Now that the crutches are almost gone, I will have to go back to walking a lot as I gained 10 lbs. Oh happy day! 

I think you get the picture. You probably do a lot of the same things. Or similar ones. When someone asks me what to do to start writing, my immediate thought is 'Sit down.' So I sit down at the computer at some point and open my word processing program and begin. If one manuscript has left me blank, I start with another. That may start me working in an entirely different direction for a while, but I usually have a number of things on the go and rather than writers' block, my problem is often focus. But we could talk about that another time! Or not.

What about you?

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