Ｗｈｅｎ Ｉ ｃａｎ’ｔ ｔｈｉｎｋ ｏｆ ａｎｙｔｈｉｎｇ ｔｏ Ｔｗｅｅｔ, Ｉ ｊｕｍｐ ｕｐ ａｎｄ ｄｏｗｎ, ｗａｖｅ ｍｙ ａｒｍｓ ｗｉｌｄｌｙ, ａｎｄ ｔｈｒｅａｔｅｎ ｔｏ ｈｏｌｄ ｍｙ ｂｒｅａｔｈ. Ｖｉｓｕａｌｌｙ.

For a tweet I can use an alternate character set, angled text, or spew a #TwitterArt pattern, on the theory that if I say nothing pretty enough, maybe my friends will think it is something.

That takes care of tweeter's block, but what about writer's block? What about a novel? How do I get started, and keep going on a project that may take a year or two just to complete the first draft?

I've read so many HOW TO WRITE books that the main thing I can say with confidence is that what works for me, won't work for you without modification. Probably. All my writer heroines and heroes seem to have different methods of coaxing the words out onto paper. Jane Austen wrote on little strips of paper about 2 inches wide, yet with PRIDE AND PREJUDICE she womanaged to create the format for the modern novel which novelists use today 2013 with our word processors & Print On Demand & eBooks & Legacy Publishing Houses crashing and burning in flames all around us. (Critics in Jane's time seem to have trounced her enthusiasm for playful exposition and excessive dialogue, because all Jane Austen's later novels conform to the styles of her day.)

For me, I have to become emotionally invested in a project and get emotionally "fired-up" to actually start a novel. If my emotions don't drive me, the project won't go anywhere.

By now I have an established MO for writing a novel. I start brainstorming for a month or three on a rough idea for a novel; I throw in any thoughts that might work from my personal library, and usually do some or extensive research on specific points that might be useful. Along the way, I am developing a DEFAULT PLOT: this is the plot of the novel I will write if I can't think of anything better. I am also developing a DEFAULT OPENING: a way to start the novel, if I can't think of anything better. By thinking and working on this, pretty much EVERY DAY for a month or so, eventually, I get so excited that I have to start; and I jump into the first draft.

As I write the novel, I continue to work on this brainstorm file, modifying the Default Plot as I write. My first draft "opening" never survives as the opening of the final draft, although it might find a home in the final draft modified later in the text. The Final Draft Opening is the toughest writing for me: I can never get the opening to a polished excellence that pleases me; at some point, I just give up tinkering with it.

I know from experience that I need at least a 3.5 hour block of time for my writing, or there is no point in even starting for that day, as it takes me about an hour to get up-to-speed so that I am actually writing new words. The first hour is mostly re-reading and polishing the prior pages, while I get up to "escape velocity" where I am so buzzed on coffee and my vision of where my novel is going next, that I start actually typing NEW WORDS. I am not a morning person. I work best at the end of the day, after a couple of cups of coffee.

I do not recommend my method to anyone else. It is slow. The fastest first draft I ever wrote for a novel was BLUES DELUXE at 9 months. DAUGHTER MOON took me 2.5 years to complete the first draft. The advantage to my method is that my actual finished product has subtlety and depth. QUALITY versus quantity.

If you want QUANTITY, try doing your creative work brainstorming an OUTLINE of 25-100 pages that can then be "translated" into first draft prose quickly (by an assistant, if you don't have the time).

@hg47