So you think you’ve got a case of writer’s block, having excessive anxiety about expressing your work properly, or a combination of the two.
Writing Excuses
First, you may enjoy listening to my Writing Excuses podcast (http://www.writingexcuses.com). Some episodes that you may find particularly helpful are:
Season 1, Episode 16: Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard
Season 1, Episode 17: This Sucks and I’m a Horrible Writer
The first one talks about methods that I and my friends use to overcome writer’s block. The second talks about overcoming your anxiety about whether or not your work is worth continuing and keeping.
General Advice
My general advice is to turn off your internal editor. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, or even using the right words. If you can’t find the right words in the moment, go ahead and move on to get your story out. Sometimes things just don’t come out right when you start, try the next part, then the next, and so on.
It also helps to organize your thoughts first. This includes pre-writing and outlining. Pre-writing is something that you do soon before writing to get you in the mode. Outlining helps you to organize your overall thoughts, even if the whole thing changes in the process.
Another thing I’ve learned recently is that writer’s block often comes when you’re trying to force your way through a part of the story that just isn’t working: trying to make a person do something out of character, making an event happen because that’s what the outline says even though it doesn’t make sense. Take a second look at what you’re stuck on writing and see if your outline needs to change.
Remember this is all advice; do what feels right to you.
Good luck.