Goodreads asked Janelle Brown:

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Janelle Brown I step away from my computer. Get out of my office altogether, if possible. I’ll go on long runs in which I listen only to pensive music (Radiohead works well; so does Massive Attack) so that I can let my mind work through the creative issues I’m up against without any distractions. I’ll go on pointless drives, for the same reason. (Bad for the environment, yes, but good for the brain.) Sometimes it helps to get out of town – I often go on a self-imposed “writing retreats” in Ojai, where I hole up in a rental house with a writer friend and just try to get away from it all. Ideally, a rental house without Internet access.

Puzzling out my “problems” with friends can really help. One of my biggest epiphanies when writing Watch Me Disappear – the epiphany that changed the entire second half of the book – came early on when I was feeling stuck and venting to a friend about how I had no idea what I was doing with one aspect of the story. She made an off-handed comment with an idea and boom, it was like I’d been hit in the head with a brick: Of course. The next day I took off with that idea and never looked back.

And yet – sometimes none of these methods work. I’ve had writer’s block bouts that lasted months. And then suddenly, one day, I’ll see what I have to do and get back down to it. I just have to coast through these periods and trust that eventually I’ll get my mojo back.

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