I'm late to the party, but... When I'm writing a multi-chapter story I try to post every day. Until I get stuck. I usually let the story rest until an idea comes to me. If the block lasts more than three or four days, I'll re-read the story from the beginning and see if that gets me anywhere (especially helpful if I'm on chapter 10 or later, and it's been awhile since I've read it from the start). If that doesn't work, I'll set it aside and (as others have said) go on to something else (another story, maybe post my thoughts about a particular episode or or idea, etc.) That usually breaks it for me. If I'm really running out of ideas for a story, I try to find a gracious way to end it. It's seems that most of my long stories seem to conclude in about 25,000 words give or take 1,000. Fourteen chapters. It's coincidence, but maybe it isn't :)

As an avid reader, I am curious to know what techniques you sterling writers employ to overcome writer's block? Rewatching past episodes? Making up mind puzzles? Compiling lists? Conversing with online (or RL) friends? Borrowing plot bunnies? Dipping into fiction fests? Gazing at pictures of Hugh Laurie? What works for you and what doesn't? I don't believe in it. I think it was Philip Pullman who pointed out that writing is the only profession where we invent a 'disease' as an excuse for not working. 'Writer's block' is an angsty, grandiose-sounding name for 'not working.' If you aren't writing, it's because you don't feel like writing. There is no block that is beyond your control. If you are stuck on one story, start another. No reason to complain that the muse has abandoned you and you are 'blocked.' I just don't believe there is any such condition. Maybe I've just never experienced it. I could happily write all day, every day. I can't imagine sitting down to write and not being able to. I can always write. It's not always good, but I never feel 'blocked.' And I can't help wondering about those who do get writer's block. Perhaps writing is not your true passion. It's like me with playing the guitar. Sometimes I don't feel like doing it. Playing the guitar is not a passion, just a diversion. Writing is my true destiny. I am sorry if this seems harsh, but I never understood where this term 'writer's block' comes from, and why it is only applied to writing and not other creative endeavors. It sounds like a lame excuse to me.

I am sorry if this seems harsh, but I never understood where this term 'writer's block' comes from, and why it is only applied to writing and not other creative endeavors. It sounds like a lame excuse to me. Well, if you've never experienced writers' block, it does seem a little harsh to make a judgment call on it--sort of like telling a person suffering from clinical depression to just look on the bright side and cheer the hell up. For myself and many of my friends, writers' block seems to stem from too much self-criticism during the writing process; we don't seem to be able to be creative and technical at the same time. If you're reading your current writings with a critical eye and searching for just the right word and just the right terminology or emotion or whatever, you can really choke off the creative flow. In other words, it's nonproductive second-guessing of your choices. Also, it occurs in other endeavors, just under different terminology: I believe that House called this phenomenon in Foreman and in famous athletes "the yips." Which makes NaNoWriMo such a blessing. The rule that one must just write and aim for word count instead of self-editing has helped to bust writers' block in many a NaNo-er, myself included. Back to my daily word count! :P

Apropos of Miss Violet's comments: Something about this reminds me of Hugh's great observation that piloting an airplane is quite easy... as long as you don't really care if you crash or not. Sorry if that is snarky, but I couldn't resist since his quote seemed so apt.

Something about this reminds me of Hugh's great observation that piloting an airplane is quite easy... as long as you don't really care if you crash or not. Sorry if that is snarky, but I couldn't resist since his quote seemed so apt. Apt for what? NaNoWriMo? The lack of self-editing? Is that what you're snarking? If you were familiar with NaNoWriMo, you would know that the exercise doesn't advocate that one should submit badly written, unedited work for publication; it merely states that one can't edit what one never writes, and that editing is a secondary process that comes after the creative process. For those who can do both writing and editing simultaneously and do it well, congratulations. For those who can't--this is a strategy addressing the original question that started this thread, about breaking writers' block. Back on the topic of fanfiction: I would never publish a work online that I had never had edited in some form. In one of my fandoms and for my original work, I have had several beta readers. I have none in the House fandom, mostly because I have no time to return the huge favor that is beta-reading, but I do print out each chapter of my fic and scan it for several hours looking for typos and clumsy phrasing. I'm fine with correcting mistakes that I find after publication as well. So although I try to use proper grammar and phrasing while writing, I'm one of those people who concentrates on the hardcore editing after the creative process.

Perfectly put, aenissesthai. If creative writing were tennis, writer's block would be consistently blowing what used to be a perfectly good serve.

Aren't all writers very self critical? If I wrote for a living I would imagine the idea of getting paid a very good incentive - hence writer's block. Writer's block is probably exactly the same as accountant's block, lawyer's block, telemarketer's block - you just aren't in the mood and you'd much prefer to be at the beach and somehow the idea of sitting down at a computer seems just too much like hard work - which is why God invented laptops. But I think thai and Blackie made a good point - ff is different - it's about fun. If you don't want to write, if you don't feel the need to write, if you don't have an idea you desperately want to share - don't - because no one is counting your word count. So you shouldn't really care if you crash and burn, but everyone likes to do their best so in another way you do care.

Miss Violet, if you never suffer from this, count your blessings. Some people may be lazy or not feel like writing and use "writer's block" as an excuse, but for me it is possible to want very much to write and find that I can't think of a single thing. Or that everything I think of is pedantic, boring, stale. And the harder I work on it the worse it gets. I'm a painter and I hit these dry spells in my art as well. Creativity seems to run in cycles for me, with part of the cycle being "down time." I'm not saying that I'm totally helpless; there are things I can do that may kick me out of that part of the cycle. It doesn't always work, though. Sometimes the only thing for it is to wait it out.

My original training was in music composition. And, I've had a two and a half year bout of writer's block there. Mostly from self-criticism, but there is a generous helping of being cut-off from decent inspiration and a complete lack of time to properly be able to get in the right state of mind. Writing prose seems to give me the same emotional rewards as composing, but is less work and more people can enjoy it.

That's the point. It's not about the artist, but the response. I know writers who know that people will dish their work - it is what happens - you just can't make everyone happy all of the time. So they have my attitude to it - take it or leave it but I'm not shutting up. But I can see how people are affected by other people's responses and how devestating that must be because basically - and especially with ff - it is just someone talking out loud and that's why I can never leave a nasty review and understand why people are always getting upset about reviews. I suppose it boils down to 'you did good'.

Yeah. Right now I'm dying to find out what happens at the end of my Doctor Who fic and I can't. My brain won't take me there. I'll sit there and stare at the computer screen, try a few things out, and nothing will happen. Or if it does, it sounds clunky and unnatural. When I go back and reread, it feels like a fourth grader wrote it. That's what I call writer's block-- when I feel thoroughly uninspired. Maybe it's just a phase I'm going through as a writer, but when I can't make my writing flow naturally, I tend to freeze up. I've experienced this to a lesser degree in school. Now, I never wanted to write papers, but if it was on a subject I really hated, the papers always came out clunky and awful. Technically, they were fantastic, because I happen to be a good speller, but I'd reread my stuff and be like, "Who wrote this? A sixth grader?" In my film classes, I could write pretty good things because I enjoy the subject, but when I had to write a paper on the economic structure of Russia in 1974, well, you could tell I spent more time staring at the blank Word Processor screen than actually writing the stupid thing. Writer's block to a lesser degree. Because the papers would always get written, even if I hated it. I had a deadline and had to follow it. But with fanfic, as so many others have said, if it's affecting my enjoyment of writing, I'll abandon it. Fanfic is a hobby. If I'm not enjoying what I'm doing, then I won't bother. P.S. I also tend to write myself into corners. Part of the writer's block I'm experiencing with the whofic, I think, has to do with the fact I'm not sure how I'm going to get the characters out of where I put them plausibly and still make it so the story doesn't lose its momentum. I complain about Russell T. Davies enough that I probably shouldn't be allowed to do what he does. :P

My 2 cents: I love to write. I work on several stories that will most definitely never get published in my LJ because they're just for my own amusement, in Dutch, and drag on for loads of pages (longest is currently up to 64 pages), and quite simply are not good enough because I don't bother to edit them. The very few stories I did throw out into the world just came to me, wanted to be written, were managable in length and, most of all, were - according to my sweet friend Wih who is my First Reader - not total crap. The stories I write for LJ have to be good enough, short enough, and make sense, and with those stories I often get totally stuck. They turn out all wrong, or too sentimental, or I have a perfect beginning and a beautiful end, but no idea at all about what will be in between. So that's my "writer's block" and it can be frustrating. And I usually just have to wait until I suddenly do know how to go on. But if I'd write for a living, it would be different, then "not good enough" sometimes will just have to do (actually, I once did co-write a book and in that case "not good enough" did have to do because of the totally idiotic deadline. Turned out no-one saw any of the mistakes I lost sleep over).

And my two cents. I'm fortunate enough not to have suffered writer's block - but then I've only been writing ff for less than 5 months, so I figure it'll arrive eventually. I don't write for a living so it's all done for the fun fun fun for me. I have however put myself through some painful grinding editing of a few of my fics (esp. early ones in response to beta comments) and come very close to grinding to a halt & just giving up. Sheer determination to improve & not post crap (at least, not utter crap) have got me through so far.

I do write for a living and I find that when I have had a rough week or have had a lot of projects coming down the pipe then I really don't want to face the laptop to write anymore. I think people who don't write for a living or have a job where writing plays an important part can't understand why someone would then not want to write in their off time. It is kind of like explaining to people who don't do radio that the four hours I spend talking to myself each day is but a small part of my job, the other eight is spent working to make the show creative and write spots and commercials in such a way that the old information is told in a new way To sum up- writers block = writer's exhaustion

So since it's November, let's talk deadlines and writing long stories... Is anyone here participating in NaNoWriMo? Or has anyone done so in the past? (That's the annual National Novel Writing Month challenge where you write 50k words in November. I would link to the site, but it's down for the count right now. Gee, I wonder if it's getting traffic or something. lol) And to tie it specifically to House fanfic, I suppose house_bigbang is the House fandom equivalent of NaNoWriMo, but with a more relaxed schedule. I know at least a couple people here are signed up for that. How's it going? And along this theme, more generalized questions: Do you prefer writing to a deadline, or writing according to your own schedule? Do you prefer working on short one-shots, or longer novellas?