Dear Mike: How do you deal with writer's block?

Reader Question: Does someone like you ever get “writer's block?” What are some of your tried-and-true ways to get around it? It drives me crazy.

Mike: Listen, every writer has had times where he/she can’t get the words down easily, if at all. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stared at a blank computer screen for a half-hour at a time and couldn’t think of a thing. It’s natural. And that’s what you should understand. Unless you’re on deadline and need your story in within minutes, don’t panic. In fact, I never use the phrase “writer’s block.” It’s the equal of an epithet to me. I don’t allow others to use it around me. It’s negative and only heightens your anxiety about not producing words. Simply view slow periods as a natural part of the creative process. Unless you have some sort of psychological problem, you either have nothing to say at the moment. Or you’re trying too hard. Or you’re just too tense, in which case I would recommend drinking your favorite beverage (for me, espresso with milk), or putting on your favorite music (for me, it could be anything; depends on my mood), and think positive, peaceful thoughts (I love imagining soft ocean waves). If all else fails, write about the writer’s block, which, of course, is a built-in contradiction. It also HAS to work, right?

100 Tools for Writer’s Block

http://onlineschool.net/2009/10/26/100-tools-to-turn-to-when-you-have-writers-block/
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Richard Price on Writer's Block

Writer's Block: An Animated Film

"Crash" Screenwriter Bob Moresco on Writer's Block

Writer's Block the Vlog

Warning: Adult Language/For Mature Viewers Only

Foamy - Writer's block

Warning: Adult Language/For Mature Viewers Only

Writer's Block: A Cartoon

Strange but Literary True: Joseph Mitchell's Legendary Writer's Block

Strange but Literary True: Joseph Mitchell's Legendary Writer's Block

From 1964 until his death in June of 1996, Joseph Mitchell, the famously brilliant staff writer for The New Yorker, suffered from, arguably, the worst case of writer’s block in literary history, frozen in place, unable to file a significant word all those years. After his passing, Mitchell’s colleague Roger Angell wrote: “Each morning, he stepped out of the elevator with a preoccupied air, nodded wordlessly if you were just coming down the hall, and closed himself in his office. He emerged at lunchtime, always wearing his natty brown fedora (in summer, a straw one) and a tan raincoat; an hour and a half later, he reversed the process, again closing the door. Not much typing was heard from within, and people who called on Joe reported that his desktop was empty of everything but paper and pencils. When the end of the day came, he went home. Sometimes, in the evening elevator, I heard him emit a small sigh, but he never complained, never explained.”

Note: Mitchell’s legendary block, coincidentally or not, occurred right after the publication of his greatest story, “Joe Gould's Secret,” the subject of which was…writer’s block.