Goodreads asked Michael Vorhis:

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Michael Vorhis How does one deal with writer’s block? A looooong time ago I listened to one of those "negotiating seminars" on tape, and I recall a question the course leader fielded about what to do about competition. He said, "Don't have any." Similarly I'd say the way to deal with so-called "Writer's Block" is to not experience it.

Contrary to popular belief, a fiction writer doesn't create a story. The story invents itself, introduces itself to the open mind, then dictates itself to that author, who records it the way the story wants to be told. If a story isn't dictating itself vividly and experientially, it's because it doesn't want to go forward--either it has been artificially taken too far down a path that's not true to where it wants to go, or it's a story without sufficient merit to go further, or something. Something is wrong, and the story is fizzling. Imagine trying to lead a river up a very gradual up-slope--at some point the current is going to fizzle.

For someone under the gun, trying to crank out novels at the rate of so many per decade (or worse yet, per year), experiencing a "block" might have some meaning. But for writers whose goal is the creation of masterful works instead of mere compliance with schedule pressures, it comes when it comes. Mull it over. Let the story itself take the helm. Ignore the calendar page. If it's a great story it will flow again, at the pace it wants to flow.

Until it does, stop agonizing over it. Live a little--go sailing, or soaring, or fly fishing, or something else that naturally ignites and elevates your spirit. The nemesis of creativity is stress, and when that's washed away then a story can once again weave and grow itself in your fertile mind with ease.

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