Writer's Block

I've had writer's block lately. It's a frustrating condition, especially for a freelancer on a deadline. No one wants the dreaded label of "writer who misses deadlines." So how does a writer break through writer's block and get the words flowing again?

I did some research to find out what other writers do and came across an interesting post by Matt at Signal vs Noise. In his blog post Writer's Block is Sometimes Just Typer's Block, he theorizes that we have the words we need, but our fingers fail to follow through. He recommends speaking the words, then going back and transcribing what you recorded. In theory, this allows you to bypass your fingers, allowing your words to shine as they're meant to.

It actually makes perfect sense. I spend so much time struggling to get the typed words to match the words in my head that I end up cluttering them up, rendering my writing incomprehensible. By speaking the words naturally and then going back and typing, I skipped all the extra words by fingers were trying to add and managed to complete my article.

What's your method for dealing with writer's block?

*Photo by Robert Linder.