Previously, I’ve always looked at Writers Block as a way of diagnosing that something has gone wrong with my story. I found that I could examine my reactions to sitting down and that they broke down into a couple of specific areas.
Drowsy — Two sentences in and I’m totally falling asleep
Staring — How long can I look at a blank screen without putting any words down?
Restless — Why am I suddenly in the kitchen doing dishes?
Dithering — There are only so many times I can rewrite the same opening.
With each of those, what’s really going on is that my reader brain is trying to tell my writer brain about its responses to the thing I’m writing.
But there’s a fifth form of writer’s block. And that’s when the urge to go to the chair isn’t even present. When you go, you hate writing. The joy is totally gone when you do write.
This is depression.
