One of the things you will have to deal with as a writer is writer's block.  I have not run into a writer who has not had the experience at least once in their lives.  It is a little like what you hear people say about impotence, "it happens to everyone."  It is not something to be feared.  It is a chance to work on your story.  Whenever it has happened to me, it has been an experience for me to work on the plot and figure out a better way to work on the story and a better point for the plot.

I participated, last November (2008), in something called National Novel Writing Month.  I am not going to participate this year, but it was an interesting experience last year.  The entire month is dedicated to writing 50,000 words in 30 days.  You are not supposed to worry about plot or grammar or anything.  The entire month is supposed to celebrate the act of creating and accomplishing something.  When you complete the novel (and there is a website where you sign up and then submit your final manuscript to see if you made the 50,000 word mark), all you get is a little downloadable do-hickey you can add to your website. 

It was interesting and I sort of recommend trying it at least once.  It also caused a tad bit of burnout for me, but it was nice to be totally free of worrying about plot.  The entire month was just focused on getting that novel done.  So, when I ran into spots that, in the past, might have caused me to put the novel aside for at ime, or abandon the project all-together, I forced myself onward.  In doing so, I ran into an interesting solution.

There was a plot point that I just couldn't work out.  I knew it was something that, normally, I would have stewed over for a few days, maybe even a week or two.  Instead, I just came up with whatever was on the top of my head and  moved on.   However, I knew that the solution I had conjured was not going to work and was weak.  However, I still could not come up with a solution.  So, I had two characters, within the context of the novel itself, talk about the fact that the plot point didn't work.

As such, the two main characters discussed that the reason the villain had given for doing what he did didn't make any sense.  In having the two characters discuss this, however, I was able to come up with a better solution.  Now, I am going tback and doing rewrites on this book and I plan on removing and changing that conversation, and altering the scene that didn't work earlier.

So, I am not sure if this is a method others have suggested for working through writers block or not.  However, it worked for me and now I pass it on to you.  Are you stuck?  Then have your characters talk about it.  You can do it within the context of your novel (as long as you go back and remove it later) or take them into their own short story, maybe, and have them work it out. 

I'll talk about NaNoWriMo later on as well.