Goodreads asked Neal Rabin:

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Neal Rabin Writer's block is code for 'uh oh, I don't know what to write at this point in time.' It might be a particular passage in a book, short story, company speech, letter to your mother in New Zealand, or the difficult email you simply don't want to write or respond to! When that happens, and it does, I have a couple remedies. First, I look for things to create inspiration. That could mean reading something similar as a reference source, or putting that troubling passage aside and working on something different. I don't like banging my head against the same door for hours on end hoping it will open. I look for different ways to get inside - there might be a side door I haven't even seen. Often changing the task - writing something else - will gin up the impetus to tackle the harder job. I also try and break what can seem like a daunting task into smaller chunks. I learned this from playing an instrument. If you listen to an entire guitar solo from say, Eric Clapton, as an example then try to play the entire thing in one go. You will become incredibly frustrated. Break that same solo down into 1 musical phrase at a time and you can master it in time.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes I distract myself from the task by whatever means necessary: call a friend, make up something that must be done NOW, which is really never true, or take my dog, who's always ready for a walk, outside. What I do not do is leave my desk. Think of it as local temporary avoidance. Writer's are rarely at loss for words, we may not always know which ones to put in the correct sequence to solve a particular problem, but we will get there eventually with perseverance. That means just show up each day, and it will happen.

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