Ask an writer that has put some serious time in at a keyboard and they will tell you that there are times that they sit down, ready to go and....nothing happens. They want to write, they want to get some pages down, but   they        just   can't  find           a  groove  or    rhythm.

It happens to all of us. Call it writers block, call it dead brain, call it whatever you want; it has afflicted us all in the past and it will come back and get us again in the future. Don't waste your time asking yourself why it happens, or wondering if there is something wrong with you (there isn't!). Instead, take a break from what has got you all blocked up and do something completely different and purposeless.

When I get stuffed up, I open up a blank page and type in the first scenario that pops in my head:

Winnie's worn slippers shuffled across the aged hardwood floor as she tightened her housecoat across her chest.
"Just a minute." she sang out to the knocking at the door. She knotted the belt around her waist and smoothed her hands down her sides, releasing the creases of her robe. Now, who could be calling this late? she wondered as she disengaged the lock and opened the door.
"Hel-," she stammered as the door opened to the empty cold night air.
"Hello?" she asked, peaking past the opening. "Is there someone there?"
A night chill flitted through her and she gripped the lapels of her robe, tightening them up beneath her chin.
"Hello?" she called out again to the silent porch. Her eyes swept the front of her house but found no caller. Odd, she thought to herself as she stepped back to close the door. Just as the door was about to close out the cold night air, a slight flutter caught her eye. she looked down, a small piece of paper stuck out from the corner of her WELCOME mat. "Hmmm?" once again scanning the front of her house. She bent down, eyes still looking out into the night for whoever might have left the piece of paper. Her cold fingers pinched the corner or the note and Winnie shuffled back quickly, closing and locking the door.
She stood still, unfolding the paper and then, in the cozy warmth of her parlor, another chill slithered through her body as she read the note:
Get out of the house now! You are in danger!
Winnie gasped, a hitch caught in her throat as tears began to threaten her eyes. "Oh, oh my God." she muttered as she stared at the words on the note. "This can't be."
The words on the note were written in an fluid and elegant hand. It was a beautiful script that she had loved  from the first moment she saw it in a love letter over fifty years ago. It was her husband's writing.

The man she adored her entire life.

The man she buried over seven years ago.

Who is Winnie? Don't know. 

Who wrote the note? Beats me.

Why is she in danger? Couldn't tell tell you.

And what's with her husband, is he alive?  Well, if he is he's got some explaining to do!

But none of thst is the point. The point is to just write- write absolutely anything you come up with and just go with it. Don't plan it out, don't worry about grammar, don't even worry if it makes sense or not. There's a pretty good chance it won't anyway! But that's the meaning of the exercise,  just let go and let it flow.

You are going to get blocked up. You are going to have days when you couldn't wring a sentence from your brain even if you were able to take it out of your head and twist it like a washcloth. Don't let it stop you from writing! Write something else- anything else. And who knows, maybe you'll come across a Winnie who makes you want to explore what's going on in her life.