I really like how in Write Your Way Out | Explorations of Style Rachael Cayley writes about writer’s block:
When we diagnose ourselves as having writer’s block, we can start to believe that we aren’t currently able to write. If you find yourself with a sore leg, it may well be that avoiding walking is a sound strategy. If you find yourself unable to write, might it be a sound strategy to avoid writing? The answer to that question is almost always no. Not writing has little-to-no curative power, in my experience.
Screenwriter John Rodgers has a similar opinion:
You can’t think yourself out of a writing block; you have to write yourself out of a thinking block.
As an aspiring writer myself, writer’s block is something I’m constantly trying to figure out ways around. I used to be (and still am to quite an extent) a very inspiration-driven writer and just sitting down and forcing myself to write is challenging.
In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott writes about writer’s block in a similar way:
I no longer think of it as block. I think that is looking at the problem from the wrong angle. If your wife locks you out of the house, you don’t have a problem with your door. The word block suggests that you are constipated or stuck, when the truth is that you’re empty.
and
The problem is acceptance, which is something we’re taught not to do. We’re taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you have been given—that you are not in a productive creative period—you free yourself to begin filling up again.