Okay, you are staring at the monitor, petting the dog or cat for the ten millionth time and you still can't continue your story line.  You've cleaned up your desk and writing area so much that surgeons could operate on it confidantly without fear of infection to the patient.  What do you do next?  You know what it is but you just haven't said that it's writers block.  Denial is good but it isn't going to get you through it.  Throwing the nearest heavy object will only cause you financial pain to replace it or your wife or husband will be pissed for killing yet another monitor.  Take a deep breath and walk away from the keyboard.  You are not alone by a long shot. 

All writers hit the writers block brick wall at one time or another and all of us will go through it again and again.  Writers block is your brains way of telling you that it needs other stimulation or just a rest.  Sitting there writing time after time your brain can get tired.  If you were lifting weights or wallpapering and using all your muscles to do it then your muscles would get tired and need a break.  Take a break and relax. 

Walk away and do something else.  If you are frustrated enough, go clean the rest of the house while you toss around the storyline in your head in the back of your mind.  This tip I offer first because we writers are a stubborn lot and insist on getting back to work as soon as possible.  Don't do it!  Walk away for a day at least.  Give the writing job a day off.  Go for a walk with the kids or the dog or your spouse or just to get out of the house and relax.  Fix that problem with the house that you have put off for days or weeks or months.  Do anything but sit back down behind that keyboard and stare at the monitor.  Your brain needs a vacation and doing anything but writing is better for your storyline than writing stale paragraphs that do not fit.  You will only find that you have to erase it later.

Take the time off and when you get back to it and begin typing it will make more sense to you and your readers alike. If the time off didn't help then try easing yourself back into writing again.  Writers block is a serious problem for some writers and authors.  There is no special parking for this debilitating problem so get over it and toughen up.  One of the tactics I've used in the past was to start something entirely different that was going to be a short story.  Sometimes it helps me to trick my brain into thinking that I'm not working on the novel and this is something else and the words will flow slowly but the imagination and creativity slowly churn.  I have on my hard drive literaly dozens of short stories that I began and found the old light bulb went off on how to fix the novels storyline so it made sense.  Some of those short stories that I've started have turned into long stories that have potential to become a novel someday so the time and enjoyment of doing them is not for nothing. 

Being a writer is not easy.  There are no guarantees that what you put to paper today will ever be anything but a few words on a page.  As a writer you have to have more than just faith in yourself.  You have to hone your craft.  One of the other ways that I found my groove so to speak was to start a blog.  My mind is political in nature so I started a daily blog on real life issues and how I feel about them.  There is a link to it in the main page that I called Straight Talk.  When I'm inbetween thoughts and find that I have dead time on my hands I write what I think.  Notice the word writing coming up over and over.  There is a reason for it.  You have a gift and it has to be practiced continuously if you want to be good at it.  Sometimes your old noggin just wants to do something else and that is how you just might get past your writers block. 

My thanks to   http://www.shawnsclipart.com/webart.html for the free clip art.