Happy birthday tomorrow!

When I am blocked, I start editing. That makes me think of things I should write - even if it is a sentence or two - or a summary of what I am reading to be inserted into a conclusion. I always keep a blank document open so I can record those sorts of ideas.

I find that small ideas tend to transform into larger ideas, and before I know it, I'm writing again. Or sometimes I just jump over the block and start working on something on the other side of the obstacle (sort of like the Anzio invasion! - bad analogy since that didn't turn out really well). Eventually, that makes the block diminish down to something of less consequence.

And when that doesn't work, I start editing, etc. etc. etc.

Good luck!

I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman's advice on this:

In my experience, writer's block is very real. You'll be writing something and suddenly it stops. The characters stop talking. You've been happily just transcribing everything they've been saying, and suddenly they sit down and shut up. Suddenly, you are in deep trouble. It does happen. It's very real. It's not something (in my experience anyway) that happens on everything at the same time. It's just that sometimes a project needs a little time to think, a little time to breathe. So what I tend to do when that happens is I always have two or three other things that I'm doing at the same time. I can just go to one of the ones that's working. Which is how I give this appearance of being prolific. I'm really not. I think of myself as a very lazy author. But it's very nice for me to have more than one thing that I'm doing at a time, and being able to bounce between them. The other thing that I would say about writer's block is that it can be very, very subjective. By which I mean, you can have one of those days when you sit down and every word is crap. It is awful. You cannot understand how or why you are writing, what gave you the illusion or delusion that you would every have anything to say that anybody would ever want to listen to. You're not quite sure why you're wasting your time. And if there is one thing you're sure of, it's that everything that is being written that day is rubbish. I would also note that on those days (especially if deadlines and things are involved) is that I keep writing. The following day, when I actually come to look at what has been written, I will usually look at what I did the day before, and think, "That's not quite as bad as I remember. All I need to do is delete that line and move that sentence around and its fairly usable. It's not that bad." What is really sad and nightmarish (and I should add, completely unfair, in every way. And I mean it -- utterly, utterly, unfair!) is that two years later, or three years later, although you will remember very well, very clearly, that there was a point in this particular scene when you hit a horrible Writer's Block from Hell, and you will also remember there was point in this particular scene where you were writing and the words dripped like magic diamonds from your fingers -- as if the Gods were speaking through you and every sentence was a thing of beauty and magic and brilliance. You can remember just as clearly that there was a point in the story, in that same scene, when the characters had turned into pathetic cardboard cut-outs and nothing they said mattered at all. You remember this very, very clearly. The problem is you are now doing a reading and you cannot for the life of you remember which bits were the gifts of the Gods and dripped from your fingers like magical words and which bits were the nightmare things you just barely created and got down on paper somehow!! Which I consider most unfair. As a writer, you feel like one or the other should be better. I wouldn't mind which. I'm not somebody who's saying, "I really wish the stuff from the Gods was better." I wouldn't mind which way it went. I would just like one of them to be better. Rather than when it's a few years later, and you're reading the scene out loud and you don't know, and you cannot tell. It's obviously all written by the same person and it all gets the same kind of reaction from an audience. No one leaps up to say, "Oh look, that paragraph was clearly written on an 'off' day."

(http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/mar99/a-conversation-with-neil-gaiman-3991)

Multiple projects means that you have things to publish after your diss, which can only help on the job market.

I'm at exactly the same stage of the process as you.

Sometimes, the stress of knowing I have to produce chapters / articles is so high that it takes over the part of my brain that does the creative work. I find that activities which sidetrack this part of my brain (like brisk walks) can help - they stop my subconscious from thinking 'mustproducemustproducemustproduce....' by focusing it on stuff like not tripping over tree roots. After an hour or two, the anxious thoughts that ties up my creativity often calm down enough for my creativity to return.

These blocks also usually signal (for me) a problem in my argument or research that needs more work before I can start writing the rest of the /section. This might be unique to my own writing process, but I will often write 2000-3000 words and then get completely stuck, and i'm only able to continue after I've gone back and located the point where my argument got off track. This is because, as I write, I continue to work through the implications of my argument and either 1) distract myself and slide off course, or else 2) learn new implications of my argument which destroy the setup for the conclusions I had originally planned. Once I've found the part that's causing the problem (usually by painfully, obsessively re-writing what I have already gotten on the page a dozen times), correcting it is easy and the rest of the argument flows smoothly until my next accidental detour / discovery. It's a painful process, and I don't know whether it's unique to me, but my answer is almost always to diagnostically revise until I find the problem, patch it enough to get my argument back on track, and push forward.

But I've become increasingly aware the past few months that my own frequent writer's block is part of some deeper anxiety issues that need professional help. As soon as I get back to a country where I have mental health coverage, I'm going to talk to a doctor about this - being so worried about article and dissertation deadlines that I can't write until the deadlines are just around the corner isn't healthy for me, and doesn't come from a healthy place inside me. Lack of writing motivation is something everyone experiences sometimes, but it's also a classic sign for some of the (treatable!) mental health issues that plague people in our profession.

But you might just be exhausted. Tomorrow is your birthday, and it's Christmas - give yourself space to breathe! If you're anything like me, a break is the last thing you want, but probably also the thing your brain needs most. You've gotten this far - that means you're a creative person and a good writer. But sometimes, the brain just needs a few days of non-dissertation work to recharge. Read a good book, talk to friends, listen to music or watch some stimulating tv - whatever gets your brain's wheels moving creatively while having nothing to do with your dissertation, so you can come back to your work mentally tuned up and refreshed. (I say this with conviction because it's really my advice to myself, which I will probably, painfully ignore tomorrow.)

Give yourself permission to write something really, really bad. It's a draft, and it's also (probably) your first big solo research project. It is not your life's work, and it's not expected that it will be the best thing you ever do. You will have the whole rest of your life to do research and grow as an academician. This is just the beginning, and there are growing pains that come with that.

I don't know if everyone's dissertation falls apart, but mine sure did, and rather spectacularly. I had to throw out a lot of data (I'm a social scientist) and redo my entire analysis. It was agonizing. My committee insisted I work it out myself (painful at the time but the best thing they could have done for me) and I wasn't sure I could do it. I was sure those assholes were just throwing me to the wolves - but it turns out they weren't assholes, and it turns out that they were right to make me take that leap into independent problem-solving. I didn't end up with the dissertation I dreamed of, but I ended up with a dissertation. You will, too. :)

It takes a time to regroup after a setback. Have you given yourself time to regroup? (Not months, but at least take a weekend and go treat yourself to something nice.)

Have you outlined a chapter of this new version? Oftentimes I find that when I am stuck it is because I have not organized my thoughts well enough to write them out. It can also be helpful to open a new document and word-vomit what's frustrating you onto the screen - if you can better define what's holding your thoughts back, you can sometimes find a solution in the process.

Also, don't try to write everything at once - try writing in tomatoes (on mobile and can't link worth beans, but look up the Pomodoro Technique - 25 minutes on, 5 minutes off is the upshot). I found this to be an incredible sanity saver when I was grinding it out.

You can get through this. You will get through this. Give yourself permission to write a really bad draft. Then write the bad draft. Let it be as bad as it possibly can be. Then take a break, do something that rejuvenates you, and come back and make it better. Eventually you'll have a dissertation.

Keep us posted, OP. You've got this.

Weirdly enough, the same tactic that gets me through writers block with fiction, also seems to work with academic writers block: Read a book. Obviously, it works for academic writing to read a book on the subject you're researching, so it's not like any old book will do. I usually grab a biography about the subject I'm researching, something that's got mass appeal but maybe isn't a dry and rigorous academic book. Take a day or two and just read and see if the block doesn't loosen a bit.

Also, it's ok to take a day or two break away from writing, but if you're prone to losing steam the longer you stay away from the writing, it's probably best not to go over a day. The brain needs to recover, though.

Also, posting here. Go looking through some of the recent submissions and see if there's anything reasonably within your wheelhouse that you can answer or contribute to. Sometimes answering a question or two here really helps grease the wheels again and jumpstart the writing.

Best of luck!

I had my supervisor set me deadlines for turning in chapters. If I didn't meet them there weren't really any consequences, but just having the deadlines set by someone else would get me to crank things out. I can never meet deadlines I set myself but react well to outside ones.

Happy Birthday. While this will not help you now, please remember that when you finish you will suddenly get a rush of ideas about 6 months later. This helps for the eventual book project.

I ran into your problem all the time. I have kids so I was forced to start working as soon as they left for school and be more or less done by the time they got off the bus at 3:30. Sometimes I could work after that, but rarely with anything new. Having a set time schedule often made things slow going with the 'wall'. Exercise helps. I would download entire courses from iTunesU and listen to unrelated material while I ran to get me refocused. Sometimes it worked. Often it was only a minor distraction to my major writing issues.

Here is what seemed to work more often than not: meet with others in your field and talk shop. I'm serious. You may hate your topic and want to burn your notes in a dumpster, but having a group of people discussing your topic or elements of it may invigorate you. I would sometimes go to undergraduate research presentations or early graduate student conferences and just relax. When I presented and attended the major conferences, I would force myself to attend odd panels or see the 'rock stars' of the field and just be 'there'. After these kinds of things I had a rush of motivation and could even bring in additional sources and methods that I may have pick up from these conferences. The after-panel dinners and cocktails helped too. Some older academics have tons of ideas that can be incredibly important. I remember in Santa Fe that one scholar I have followed for a few years mentioned an obscure source that had 4 pages of killer material that "might be of use to you." I was producing Michener-level page counts for a week when I got home.

You need to step away sometimes and find ways to get motivated. I have noticed that it is not that I have nothing to say, but rather I am having trouble saying it. I was tired of the dissertation and wanted to move on to the next step. Just pace yourself and remember why you wanted to do this in the first place. Stay strong.

As the diversity of these suggestions indicates, everyone finds their own solution to this problem -- which is very common! I'm also in the writing stage, and what's been working for me (somewhat) is to focus on the time I put in rather than word limits. I have a timesheet, and try to put in 15 hours per week of writing time. Sometimes I'll try to work for a couple of hours without really coming up with anything, but the point is that I'm keeping the project in mind everyday. So even if I don't produce much, I am trying to think through writing problems and am therefore more likely to come up with an idea after my work time is over that I can apply the next time I write. I have a friend at the same stage, and we're actually using the same timesheet (it's on Google Drive), so we can be a little competitive with one another too.

Obviously, at some point I need to produce chapter drafts, and so I think it's a good idea to incorporate deadlines into this system -- meetings with your advisor, for example. But the fact is that writing 500 words can take 30 minutes or 12 hours depending on the section you're working on. Knowing that I'll only be working for, say, 3 hours no matter what happens takes the pressure off for me and helps me to imagine that writing this thing as actually, really possible.

Happy birthday for tomorrow.

I write two ways. Either I read until it all just clicks and then I pour out a load of crap and edit it into something workable, or I am very structurally focused. When I go this way I plan out a structure, then plan out every paragraph needed to get through that structure in a logical way, and then plan out what is needed within each paragraph in terms of content, sources etc. Essentially it's dot points under dot points under dot points at that point. Then I start inserting the things necessary for a complete paragraph in more complete sentences and with references. The writing ends up stilted, but that can be fixed with editing.

It's not the best way to write, and I can't imagine it being effective for creative writing, but it can be quite effective to force something basic into place that can then be worked with.

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