Goodreads asked Merle Nygate:

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Merle Nygate There was a time when I thought that writer’s block was like the monster chained up in the wardrobe – a scary fairy tale. However, after being bumped off of a TV project that was close to my heart, the monster was unleashed. The next time I sat down to write I was frozen. I couldn’t do it. All the doubts about my writing talent and skill fizzed up to the surface and I repeatedly asked myself why on earth I was doing all this hard work because whatever I did was doomed to failure.
It was an echo of something a teacher said to me at school – that I would be a failure at whatever I did for the rest of my life. I don’t think she liked me.
A writing friend suggested The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It’s a three-month programme with two basic ideas. The first is you write three pages stream of consciousness every day. And the second is that you do a weekly artist’s date. There’s also lots of other creative exercises plus a liberal smattering of spiritual stuff.
You have to be desperate to do it.
I was desperate. And it worked.
Writer’s block is really writer’s anxiety and mild depression.
Every time I start a new project there’s always a moment or two when I go through an anxiety sequence when I doubt that I can do it, then I doubt that anyone else will like what I’ve done. These days, I recognise the inevitable sequence as part of the writing process.

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