Burnout bites, it really really bites...

Read a book. Wait for inspiration to strike me for my own novel. Jot down quick notes but HOLD OUT. Keep reading. Return to novel when I've generated enough interest to get me over the difficult part of the story. Rinse and repeat.

If you write daily, don't be ashamed to take a few days off- especially for reading which is important to being a writer.

What she said

Sometimes your creativity just needs to be pointed somewhere else. It needs a breather. It's suffocating.

Reading other peoples work, movies (a big thing for me) or just taking a break from writing, has all helped me before.

Good luck!

When I feel burnt out, sometimes I work on something else. Another story, another part of the book, or just take a break and don't work on the book/story at all. I find that when I come back to a project after a hiatus, I usually see it with semi-fresh eyes that lets me see things that I can fix, and sometimes that fix gets me to a place where I can move beyond the blocked place.

A vacation works too.

I call it giving the well time to refill.

It took me a while to accept that it's for me a natural part of my writing process, and no longer beat myself up about it. The others have made some good suggestions, read a book, paint a picture, garden, knit, whatever works for you, and trust that the well will fill.

I don't have dry spells. You have to lower your expectation. Once you allow yourself to write the world's worst sh*t, you are free to be. I can sit down at any given time and write. It doesn't matter what my mood is or where my head is at. I'm okay with writing crap...sometimes the best stuff comes in the middle of a crap session. The secret to unlocking this thing that people call writer's block? Get over trying to be the best. Set your sights at being the worst and nothing will stop you from writing it down. Be a monkey slamming away at the keys...maybe, if you're lucky, something good will eventually come out. If not, you still get the joy of slamming away at those keys.

KTC said:

I don't have dry spells. You have to lower your expectation. Once you allow yourself to write the world's worst sh*t, you are free to be. I can sit down at any given time and write. It doesn't matter what my mood is or where my head is at. I'm okay with writing crap...sometimes the best stuff comes in the middle of a crap session. The secret to unlocking this thing that people call writer's block? Get over trying to be the best. Set your sights at being the worst and nothing will stop you from writing it down. Be a monkey slamming away at the keys...maybe, if you're lucky, something good will eventually come out. If not, you still get the joy of slamming away at those keys.

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Well, I've only been writing seriously for five years and so far I've weathered these burnouts by doing exactly what KTC said. I keep writing even though what I may be writing is crap. I figure eventually it will turn around and become good again and at the very least, out of 10k words of crap there may be 250 of them that are salvageable, so while my production may go down, it doesn't stop completely.

I suppose that maybe when I've done this day in and day out for next 15 or 20 years, give or take, I may find that I need a complete break, but at this stage of the game I've got a lot of work to do to reach my goals and I don't feel I have the luxury of letting time slip by.

KTC said:

I don't have dry spells. You have to lower your expectation. Once you allow yourself to write the world's worst sh*t, you are free to be. I can sit down at any given time and write. It doesn't matter what my mood is or where my head is at. I'm okay with writing crap...sometimes the best stuff comes in the middle of a crap session. The secret to unlocking this thing that people call writer's block? Get over trying to be the best. Set your sights at being the worst and nothing will stop you from writing it down. Be a monkey slamming away at the keys...maybe, if you're lucky, something good will eventually come out. If not, you still get the joy of slamming away at those keys.

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Writer's block is a very different beast than burnout. Burnout and I, we're old friends, and writer's block is something much easier to cure. If it's burnout, I'd seriously recommend taking a break. One day makes a lot of difference. You might also evaluate the rest of your non-writing life and see what is causing you stress (I've found if I'm trying to write AND trying to do too much outside of writing, I burn out on all of it). Relax a bit. Pinpoint the cause and fix it.

TypoSlayer said:

I'm in the middle of a dry spell, a "burnout" (I'm sure I didn't make up that term... I read it in a book somewhere.) and it bites. I want to write, but I can't. Miss Muse has hidden herself away somewhere, leaving me wanting to find a nice brick wall to tap my head against (and I mean tap...I'm no big fan of brain damage ) I know this has happened to everyone here, so I ask...What do you do to call the rains back?

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Before getting angsty, go back and make sure that there's enough conflict to generate plot in the middle bit. Perhaps you aren't burned out, you're just stuck.

I walk in the woods away from noise and people. Perhaps go to some place that reminds you to the setting in your book?

Also, adding a new character will often jumpstart a story and add new dimensions.

Zornhau has a good point, but if it turns jout that your creative mind has decided to stall, you really need to give it a chance to recharge. When I do this, I try to put little reminders around the house where I'll see them during the day (just one or two).
Then I do what the other posters have suggested, read an interesting book, relax, play with the grandkids, whatever I can that doesn't take a lot of processing power.
The 'reminders' seem to keep my creative mind focused on what I'm looking for. Within a short period of time, I'm back at the keyboard.

TypoSlayer said:

I'm in the middle of a dry spell, a "burnout"... I want to write, but I can't. Miss Muse has hidden herself away somewhere...

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This sounds more like writer's block than true burnout. With burnout, you don't want to write, you don't want to read, you don't want to do any of the things that you've been doing. The answer there is to STOP, and let yourself go away for awhile. Forcing yourself past true burnout is going to lead to someplace much worse.

If you WANT to write but can't--which sounds like writer's block--then shift your paradigm. Go read a book in a completely different genre. Give yourself a flash fiction writing exercise about a subject you've never considered before. Give yourself permission to play, to write terribly, to have some FUN. At the end of the day, isn't writing supposed to be enjoyable? Why else do we do it?

Above all, CHANGE something in your mental state to release the log-jam in your creativity. Don't begrudge yourself a day doing something different. BIC is mandatory but ya gotta know the difference between discipline and torture. The muse won't be lured back by you sitting there sweating blood.

What's more wasteful: staring at your monitor writing nothing (or garbage) for days on end, or giving yourself the gift of some time off (even an afternoon) doing something to jostle your creativity?

You'll probably find that 'wasted' day will pay you back beyond your (and your WIP's) wildest dreams in productivity and fresh ideas.

I do most of my writing on my laptop, but everynow and then I am not in the mood to write, i want to but it just ain't there. What I have found that works, besides reading as the others have mentioned. I take a spiral notebook and sit down and watch tv. I don't know why, but seeing scenes unfold on tv, any scene, seems to get me back in motion. And for some reason i am able to write faster than I can type so i get through hte little things and get the main jist down.

I am in a burn-out myself. It's awful. It sucks all your mental strength and evaporates take the words from your brain. I've never found it so hard to write a sentence. Everything I put on the page seems like it's the wrong way to say it.

My sympathies.

Good advice in this thread. Time is certainly an ingredient in the solution. Desire another.

Give yourself the freedom to step away, to not care less about it. You will find that you do care, and when you choose to return, you will be ready to move forward.

Thanks for posting this, typoslayer, and to everyone who answered.

From what has been said, I see there is a difference between burn-out and writers block. And I'm now acknowledging that my husband is right when he says I'm in burn-out.

A novel I began in early April took hold and I finished it in less than four months. Without even going over it as thoroughly as I should have, I sent it to my agent thinking, he knows my writing ability and he'll either like this or he won't.

Now I don't even want to write while I await his verdict. I can't unwind by reading because I want to edit everything I read. Meanwhile, if the book I've just written isn't - as I think - the best thing I've put on a screen, I currently feel I'll never write again.

Definitly time to stand back and embrace something other than writing - if only I had the energy!

How about doing some research, either for this story or one that's fermenting in your brain? You'll be doing things that are both creative and productive to your work but you're not stuck staring at a blank screen. And it might jostle the muse back into the front of your mind.

"It's better to burn out,
Rust never sleeps."

-- Neil Young

caw