Goodreads asked Keith Scribner:

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Keith Scribner I find that a writing discipline, a regular and strict routine, is the best practice for fending off writer's block. If I show up at my desk everyday, preferably at the same time, my body and unconscious and imagination will come to recognize the signal to get cracking. When I'm in the middle of writing a novel, a daily word count is really useful. If I can't get up from my desk until I've written 500 words, and I have to leave for work in 10 minutes but I've put down only 300 words, it's amazing how quickly the remaining 200 will come. I might throw out most of them the next day, but almost always there'll be a surprising image or scrap of dialogue or even one good word that I wouldn't have come up with had I quit before hitting my goal.

flag