Interesting advice so far! Lynn, I'd often heard the 'just type' method recommended, but it's never worked for me. However, I'd never heard that variation of typing something other than from your own head - from a book or whatever. I might just give that a go, see if it makes a difference.
Lab - this advice came to me from a writer who had had her first book published and sat down to write her second book. She was seized with a paralyzing terror that her first success was simply a total fluke and that she'd never again be able to write anything - an affliction she claims strikes most newly published authors faced with writing the next book.
Anyway, her fellow-writer friend gave her the advice to just start typing anything at all - her grocery list, a news article, anything - so she sat down with the balcony scene from
Romeo and Juliet and started to transcribe it. During the process, she got the idea for her two new characters to perform a scene in a play and her writer's block was broken. The second book has since been published, and within it is a scene that makes references to Romeo and Juliet!
I haven't yet tried this technique, but I imagine if I'm ever faced with insurmountable writer's block, I'll give it a try <g>.
And I fully agree with Wendy regarding the advice to skip ahead. I am completely unable to write in a pure linear fashion - some scenes are too exciting to wait to get to. My biggest writer's block usually comes when I have to actually link scenes together and fill in the missing "from here to there" scenes.
Lynn
