Goodreads asked Armen Pogharian:

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Armen Pogharian I have a lot of things going on (small business owner, swim coach, parent, writing, etc.) in my life and create routines to help me keep things straight. I get up before 5:00 am three days a week to swim. I go to bed at the same time every night. I have set business meetings and swim practice schedules. Unfortunately, creativity and writing don't always want to follow a routine. As much as I try to outline and plan my stories, once I start writing I always discover new character traits, story lines, and ideas that are too intriguing to leave out. Several of my favorite characters began as color and texture type characters, only to become important aspects of the story. This leads to a lot of editing and re-writing as I go and inevitably writer's block. Some authors just plow through writer's block editing and re-writing until they break through. I occasionally try that, but for me taking a break to work on something else is generally more effective. If it revolves around a single scene, I'll often bypass it and work on another or go back and read through the events leading to the scene. If it's more involved, I'll back away from it. I find naps often help. Even as little as 15 minutes of sleep can work wonders. If that doesn't work, I'll step away for a few days or even longer. Quite a few breakthroughs occur during non-writing time (swimming sets or mowing the lawn).

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