Goodreads asked Deborah L. Fruchey:

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Deborah L. Fruchey In one sense, I no longer have writer's block. I belonged to a weekly writer's group for several years, where we received prompts and wrote for timed periods, 10 or 20 minutes usually. And I learned that no matter how tired or uninspired I felt at the beginning of the evening, I could always find something inside me. Sometimes my best stuff came out on the evenings when I felt I had nothing to say. So I have learned that I can sit down and write SOMETHING any time I want.

However, writing SOMETHING is different than writing a very specific thing. I may not be able to come up with a poem on command (though that is sometimes possible). And I certainly can't force a novel into being. A lot of very complex things have to migrate together and join into a web to make a novel work, so I can get very stuck there. Right now I am trying to put together a new novel that is taking a very long time to coalesce. The basic premises are sound, but plotting is my weakness. This time I have decided to make a plot outline ahead of time instead of going by the seat of my pants - and the process is mountainous for me. Luckily I have found a great online course about the art of story structure that will make it all a bit more comprehensible.

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