Yes we all get it. Whether it is writing the last chapter of The Amazing Adventures of Thunder & Lily, now unfinished for over a year, or posting the next blog. Writer’s Block with blogging is way more confronting – as I found out this week. I found comfort in the thought that writer’s block if you tweet must be so frightening that it would paralyse you. Well maybe not – not if you feel comfortable just telling the world what you had for dinner compared to the need to manage your “intellectual” or “humorous” persona.

And there lies the problem, when it happens it can happen for lots of reasons but our reactions define us. Mine, it appears, is to seek consolation in others imaginary problems being worse than mine. What is yours ? Wikipedia has a nice little unemotional dissection of the problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer’s_block.

I love wikipedia – don’t you ? Definitely on my list of sites I’d take to the desert island.

So what are our typical reactions:

• Ignore it and hope it goes away
• Think it could be worse and take comfort in that thought, as I do
• Avoid any attempt to restart the work
• Fill our time with non productive tasks to feel productive but not address the issue – “the busy fool”

I used to do a lot of project based work in my previous life and I thought to address the problem what I should do is treat it like a problem project so these tips might help you:

1. Call a meeting with yourself to discuss the problem (Blackberries off please)
2. Dissect the problem in detail (pre-buying a whiteboard will help)
3. List some actions to address issues – such as trying to turn the computer on to confront our fears
4. Allocate Accountability “A” for the actions and a timeframe for completion – I love this one as you can run around screaming “Who has the “A” for this task ?”. Okay so you will have the A for everything on this list but it is still fun.
5. Schedule the next project meeting and note who is bringing morning tea.

I found this quite helpful and discovered that a problem in itself was a solution – blog about Writer’s Block. Also a good idea to Google Writer’s Block – there are lots of helpful tips out there – I like About.com’s list http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/writingroadblocks/tp/block.htm

Sorry I have to log off now as I’m late for the project meeting about the last Chapter of The Amazing Adventures of Thunder & Lily and I’m on morning tea