Crash and Burn

   I was working on an epic fight scene when I stopped midway during a dialogue between the good guy and the bad guy. I couldn't think of a word to say to the other character. This has never happened to me before.
  
   In June, I set myself a challenge of writing 30 pages in 20 days. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. For the first few days, it was great. It pushed me to write in a different way and to look at the new characters as if they were part of the story from the beginning. Some days were harder than others. Some days I didn't want to write because my wrist was hurting. Other days I'd stay up till 3am so I could put in those 30 pages. It was the most fun I'd had. Sometimes, I would stop myself from writing a scene because it seemed outrages. I wrote it anyway. It was outrages, mad and sometimes erotic.

   During that time, I just let loose and went wild. At work, my friends would ask me what I wrote the day before. They would be fascinated and wanted to know more. Nothing was going to stop me. Not the lack of sleep, not a sore wrist or shoulder ( I wrote it by hand ) or being lost in the plot. The period after that challenge, things weren't the same. I still wrote a lot, but not as much as I used to write.

   Earlier this year, I went to a book signing. It was for Deborah Harkness's third book The Book Of Life in the All Souls trilogy. She's a professor at the University of South Carolina. She teaches History and the History of Science. Someone from the audience asked her about writer's block and she said that she forces herself to not write for a week. By the end of the week she can't wait to write.

http://deborahharkness.com/about-deborah/
   I tried not to write for a week but it didn't work. So I'm setting myself another challenge to see of it will work. Starting from today, I will be writing 30 pages till the end of the week. For the next five days, forgive me if I'm grumpy or can't stop talking about the story.