Dealing With Writer's Block

Right now, I have a bad case of writer's block. I keep reading and rewriting the same pages and find it very difficult to move forward.

In her book, How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author, Janet Evanovich recommends that we write something every day, even it means just a few sentences on the screen. And, we should not get hung up on rewriting the first page or chapter. Rewriting and polishing should be done only on a completed manuscript.

She provides four ways of overcoming writer's block:

• Do it by time.  Start with five minutes and increase the time by five minutes a day. In two weeks, you will be sitting at our desks for about an hour a day.

• Do it by pages.  Start with one paragraph a day and work towards a page a day. By year's end, 365 pages you will have written 365 pages.

• Do it by word account.  Plan to write a specific number of words each day. Hemingway wrote around 500 words a day--approximately 2 pages. Those two pages a day produced nine novels and a number of short stories--with plenty of time out for game hunting and fishing.

• Do it by appointment.  Carve out a place and a certain time of each day for writing. Then show up for work.

On a personal note...

I like the idea of writing a page a day and sitting at my computer for a designated length of time.