Goodreads asked Teresa Edgerton:

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Teresa Edgerton Actually, I struggle with writer's block. A genuine block -- not the kind that lasts a day or a week, but the sort that lasts months or years -- can be devastating. But in my experience that kind of block is not the problem; it's the symptom. Like the symptoms of physical disease, it's not always easy to discover the cause. It could be a physical illness, like un-diagnosed diabetes or anemia. It could be clinical depression (which I believe is the most common cause). It could be traumas and stresses in your everyday life.

So the cure is not some silly little exercise your friends might suggest (or even some of their better ideas, which can work very well for the one day or one week depression), but to fix whatever is causing it. Sometimes it's easy. You go to your doctor and get blood work, and he or she tells you to take iron pills or watch your sugar intake, and before long you are healthier and back writing. Sometimes it's hard. You have to work your way through problems with your family or your personal relationships (although some writers find these material for their writing).

Sometimes you can't fix it and you just have to fight and do the best you can. I suffer from severe clinical depression, which is a widely misunderstood disease. There are a lot of treatments, a lot of medications that work for some people and not for others, so you and your doctor have to keep trying them out until you find the one that works. If there is one. In the meantime, you have to try and mitigate it, and one way is not to let people make you feel guilty or useless, which is what many people —well-meaning people, unpleasant people, people who just don't get what it is, all sorts of people— will try to do. The depression just gets worse, because you probably already feel guilty and useless.

I try to surround myself with things that inspire me, things that lift my spirits. I take walks, read good books, try to eat better.

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