Goodreads asked Angela Benedetti:

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Angela Benedetti I rarely get writer's block, where I can't write at all. When that happens, there's usually some external cause, something going on in my life that's sucking up all my attention, or otherwise not allowing me to sink into my work. In 2012, frex., my husband tore a retina. He needed two surgeries that year, and we didn't know for months after whether he'd ever get enough sight back to even be able to read paper books. I was frightened and stressed out for most of the year, and my wordcount total for 2012 sucked rocks. That sort of thing happening can make it hard to be productive at anything, and I've learned not to fight it -- when I'm under that kind of stress already, I don't need more.

More common is project block, where I can write in general, but there's a roadblock on a particular project. How I handle that depends on whether I have a deadline for the project, or whether I just particularly want to work on it.

I rarely have deadlines -- and never for more than a short story if I can help it -- and my usual strategy for dealing with project block is to go work on something else. I always have a pile of partials on my hard drive, so it's rarely tough to find something else to work on. Or I might start something new, if a plot bunny has been jumping up and down demanding attention.

Sometimes just letting my subconscious work on something for a while is the answer. I'll wake up, or sit down to write, or be eating dinner or whatever, and suddenly Poof! I know how to get past a particular roadblock. I'll go back to that project and work on it until it's done or another roadblock comes up. This works often enough, that turning to a different project is, I'll admit, my go-to response to project block.

If I have to get something done, or just want to very much for whatever reason, I have a few techniques I can use.

Sometimes just asking myself, "Okay, what's the next line?" will do it. Focusing on what the next line, the next sentence, should be, without worrying about the scene or chapter or whatever, can get that next line out. Then I do it again. And again, and again, and eventually I'm past the block and words are flowing again. This takes some focus and discipline, but it can work well.

Another technique is to go back to the beginning of the story and start reading. Sometimes I'll have enough momentum going by the time I get to wherever I am that I can pick up writing. Actually, what's probably happening is that my subconscious notices some things I've forgotten, or puts two or three things together, so that when I get to the working end, I see something I hadn't seen before, and can keep going.

If that doesn't work, then it might be that I got off the rails somewhere, hopefully not too far back. If I back up to the beginning of the previous scene or chapter, I might be able to think of another approach. Sort of like I took a wrong left turn somewhere, so I back up and take a right, and that gets me where I need to be.

If I still can't find the answer, then I have a time- and labor-intensive method I figured out one year while doing NaNo. It came about accidentally, but it can work really well. I was completely stuck on my project -- and had a deadline because NaNo -- so I started an e-mail to a writer friend. We were NaNo buddies for a few years running, chatting back and forth and helping each other out. So I started to explain to my friend, in the letter, what was wrong, hoping she could give me some suggestions. Of course, in order for her to be able to help me, I had to tell her what-all I'd written so far, with a plot summary, character descriptions, where I wanted to go, relevant worldbuilding details, everything. And just to save time, I also explained to her, in detail, what possible solutions I'd thought of already and why those approaches wouldn't work. So I was writing all of this, gathering every relevant detail about my novel and summarizing it, explaining what the problem was in detail, what I'd already thought of, and I was thinking of a couple more possibilities and explaining why they wouldn't work, and I got to one point (thousands of words later, seriously) where I was typing, "and then there's THIS which wouldn't work because..." and I couldn't think of a reason. I'd come up with the answer on my own, so I never sent the letter -- I just went back to writing. :)

I think that last one worked because you can only hold so much in the front of your mind at one time. If you think of the desktop of your mind, your actual conscious workspace, it can only hold a few things at once -- six or eight, usually, as a maximum. Usually when we're thinking about something and already have our maximum number of items front and center, bringing one more item onto the stage means the first one gets shoved off. So we're actually considering all the items -- things, ideas, characters, plot devices, setting details, or whatever else you might be thinking about depending on what you're doing -- semi-serially, because we just can't hold it all on our mental desktop at one time. Writing things down, though, lets you use your file (or a piece of paper, or a whiteboard, or whatever) as auxiliary desk space, like having a separate table in your office near your desk -- now you can spread more things out and still see them all. So writing my letter to my friend let me consider everything at once, for probably the first time, and I finally had enough data right in front of me that I was able to work out the answer on my own. I've done this a few times since that one NaNo year, but it takes a lot of work and I don't do it all that often.

For more info and tricks about how your brain works and how to make best use of it, BTW, check out Your Brain at Work, by David Rock. I read this several years after that NaNo year, and when I came to the part about how you can only hold so many things in the front of your mind, but writing things down lets you expand on that, I went, "Aha!" and recognized what'd happened with my unmailed letter to my friend. Seriously, this is a great book. :)

If none of that works, I just go work on something else. I have a few stories I haven't worked on in years, and might never finish. Usually when I really want to finish something, though, I can. But unless I have a deadline for a particular project, I'm happy so long as I'm working on something.

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