Writer's block – it can be likened to your favorite pen running out of ink. The writer smoothly fills the page with prose. It rolls easily from brain to hand, till suddenly, nothing is forthcoming. The hand continues to try to write, but the page remains blank. The ideas have apparently dried up. It may be that your hero is locked into such a tight situation that the author cannot figure out any way to free him. Or, your internal editor has turned on and declared that as the first part of your story is so perfect, nothing that follows could be worthy of completing the masterpiece. Changes in the author's life, and occasionally lack of change in the author's life, have caused the ideas to dry up.
    This is not a fatal condition. It does not mean that you aren't a writer. On the contrary, it means that you are being tested by the muse. Every writer who has believed that the words he so diligently places on paper could be of value to anyone but himself experiences this phenomenon.    Because there are many causes for writer's block, there is no simple answer for getting past it. Mark Twain was said to have left one of his most famous novels sit for nearly twenty years before he had the courage to go back to it, to revise what he had written and finish the story.    Most of us don't have that sort of patience. We need to see results immediately. The contracts we have with our publishers are not as gentle as the ones Twain negotiated with his publishers – unless we are self publishing. We expect that we should be able to produce on demand, often forgetting that the muse may not be ready to let her pitcher of creativity flow into our brain until the proverbial eleventh hour, when the piece we are working on must go out. One hour, or perhaps if you are lucky, two hours before you must send the piece off to your editor, the words flow forth again. Often those last two hours are the most creative hours you will ever experience as a writer. Do not despair.