Sometimes, in the process of writing a piece that otherwise flows along quite happily, I'll randomly get stuck. I know what I want to write about, I just don't know HOW to write it... sometimes I'll try four or five different ways of presenting the same scene and events, but none of them are satisfactory. I've spent a week writing and re-writing the same scene over and over. There's no appreciable REASON that this happens, as far as I can tell, I just... get stuck. Taking a break doesn't help, because when I come back, I STILL don't know how to present the sticky part. I have a 300+ page story that's been sitting idle for four years because I simply cannot unstick myself. I've abandoned it because it's fanfiction, but none the less, my failure to hash out the sticky part still irks me.
Several times, the only solution I could find was journalistic phrasing - presenting the scene as if I was writing about it for a newspaper article, short, to-the-point, and detached. If I can get past it, the rest of the writing usually goes smoothly, and sometimes if I'm lucky I can go back and edit the scene so that it fits better with the flow.
Sometimes, though, I'm just screwed.
That, for me, is the worst part of writing a novel, or anything for that matter.
We posted almost at the same time.
At least I have a good critique partner. 
