Writer's Block

Writer's block: the thing everybody hates and has encountered at least once in his or her (or its/whatever's) life.

How do you guys get over writer's block when you don't have much time left to mope around and look for inspiration? I'm kinda in a dead zone right now and I really need a nudge in the right direction.

Music.

Often, I sit around and listen to a variety of songs... and then allow my head to make random music videos involving characters in my stories. Eventually, I end up taking some of these ideas, and it helps to overcome the block. Leaving the story alone for a while tends to work for me too. Alternatively, writing randomly without plotting things out (even if it might not be a good idea for some) tends to loosen my block since a lot of my stuff just comes out of nowhere. Same with drawing without a plan. I could invent a new character or situation on paper and want to incorporate it.

If you have a rough draft, then I'd suggest using that. When I had writer's Block it was usually because I didn't feel like writing that particular part. Once I forced myself to get past something. It's fine, you can always go back and change it.

Like most aspects of writing, writer's block is something that affects everyone differently, and when it comes to dealing with it, to an extent you're just going to figure out what works for you.

I would suggest just writing to get around writer's block, though. Don't work on whatever it is that you're blocked on--you don't need to "work on" anything at all. Just write about your day, or some random scene that pops into your head, or whatever else comes to mind at the time. I find that the more you write, the more you find you want to say--you can kind of think things through while you're putting words down on the page. If you go for a few days and still can't get back into whatever you're working on, you might just have to open it up and hack away with random nonsense until you get back on track again. Sometimes, if you take a break and things still aren't coming, you're just going to have to grind along for awhile until inspiration catches back up with you.

If nothing else, writing other things instead of just not writing altogether helps put you in the habit of doing some writing every day, which will serve you well in the long-term whatever its consequences for your blocked project.

I doodle.

One time I was having this huge Writer's block, and I just drew this three-dimensional cube with a face on it, and underneath I just wrote "BLOCKBLOCKBLOCKBLOCKBLOCKBLOCK" and then it was gone.

I agree with Arylett, listening to music really helps. So does leaving it be for a while.

Something else I do is make a "portfolio" for the writing in the meantime. Brainstorming characters; their backgrounds, appearance, personality, etc.

I pick up the pencil and draw until I'm interested in writing again.

Cry hysterically into my pillow and wait until it passes by writing the thing I'm probably more interested in at that moment.

I don't tend to get 'blocked' by not knowing what to write; I get sidetracked because I want to write something else, so I do that until I feel like getting ready to finish whatever I'd been working on before! There's also a little place in my city that I like to go to so I can chill and think about things, but that's *probably* a bit weird, ehehe. It's the setting for something I'm writing right now, though.

I usually go and work on one of my other projects. When I got writer's block on one of my novels, I started writing a novella, when I got writer's block on that, I started writing a novel, when I go writer's block on that, I went back to the novella, when I got writer's block on that, I started writing a musical and now I'm writing that musical concurrently with an album and another book.

^Multitasking for the win?