What To Do When the Well Runs Dry

If writing were easy, everyone would be doing it. So, even though it’s like working out at the gym or running (the more you do it, the more you can do), each day can be a new challenge, a new test of your commitment and skills.

Some days it just ain’t happening. You get up early (or whenever your writing time is—did I mention you need to have a regular time to write?), sit down, crank up the computer, and… nothing. You’re tempted to Facebook, read email, clean your desk.
Resist the temptation.
Write. Write something else.
if you’ve hit a dry spell in your current novel, start making notes on your next one. More than once, I’ve found that writing down ideas for my next book (working title: “The Dreamers”) somehow, magically, generates ideas for my current one. Even if that doesn’t happen, you’re not wasting your valuable, never-to-be-retrieved, writing time. You’re creating not just a book (or poem, or short story or screenplay), you’re creating a career.
Too many would-be writers I’ve met pour their hearts and souls into their one project, then, if they finish it, spend all their time trying to get it read and published. It’s as if they only have one idea, and they’re stuck on it.
That’s not how you create a writing career.
Sometimes I feel like making notes, or even writing a chapter in my “next” book is just a way of putting off writing my current one. I worry that I’ve run out of ideas. Maybe yes, maybe no. What I do know is, writing is better than pissing away time not writing.