My name is M Harold Page ("Martin" is actually fine) and I don't really believe in Writers Block.
Yes, OK, it does describe a situation: "Oh look, there's a writer banging their head on the desk and weeping with frustration. (OMG is that blood?)"
And that was me for the last couple of months. My productivity plummeted. The contract I was working on seemed complicated and hard to focus on...
Then I had a very overdue eye test and the optician regarded my current reading glasses and said, "I wouldn't be wearing those."
It wasn't my brain. It wasn't my Fickle Muse (Oh The Angst). It was my damned eyes.
Not getting around for my eye test had cost me weeks of productivity and even begun to trigger self doubt. Was I really able to hack it as a writer? Would it make me happy?
Stupid! Stupid! STUPID!
Except when I started talking to other people about this, they had similar stories. External stuff - illness, eyes, depression, RSI - seeps into our lives in imperceptible increments. We're like a lobster going, "Ooo. Seafood! Where is that nice smell is coming from?" We don't realise we're the one being cooked until too late!
And that's the wider experience. Writer's block always turns out to be either some issue with skill, or else some non-writing specific issue revealed by the attempt to write.
So, inspired by the Checklist Manifesto, here's a checklist to get you out of the cooking pot. I've listed the most common issues first, but they are, alas, not mutually exclusive...
