Personally, i don't like the term Writer's Block. It's all encompassing and mostly useless. The majority of the time, i think the term is used to express a loss of motivation/desire.
That being said, however, i think that loss of motivation comes in many forms and can very much block our creative outlets. Perhaps it's external pressures (anxiety over making a living, relationship issues, etc), fatigue (mental, physical or emotional), disillusionment (realization that we're not as skilled as we thought we were; realization that the publishing industry works much differently to how we thought; too much rejection--whatever 'too much' is depends on the individual; other), internal pressures (am i good enough; why aren't i good enough; why is everybody else getting published but i'm not), or just having difficulty with a story (i'm a third of the way in and i'm struggling to continue; this plot/character issue is way too hard for me to resolve; this works far better in my head than on paper). And there's plenty of others i'm missing.
Thing is, each person works differently. Some of the above factors may serve as extra motivation for one person, but really kill the motivation of another. But if, when going through a rough writing patch, we can isolate the thing holding us back we're two-thirds of the way towards beating it. And even if we can't, going through the process more often than not helps.
That's why i think encompassing everything under the term 'Writer's Block' is a bad thing. Two reasons. 1) it makes it an easy way to get out of putting the effort in to overcome the issue--even if only subconsciously. 'Damn it, i've got Writer's Block. Oh well, guess i'll just have to wait for it to leave.' 2) it can mean we waste a lot of effort and energy blindly fighting a monster that's way too huge for us, which will likely create other issues to add to the ones we're already facing.
Of course, some of the things that block us do take time to work around. Often, difficulty with story issues require time to be spent away from the story to give us the objectivity to resolve them. And some things may never completely resolve. Depression sufferers may find there's certain times when they struggle to write, no matter their intentions.
But if we do our best to understand the things that do and might hamper our motivation, then we can work at putting plans in place to deal with them when they arise. Sometimes those plans aren't successful immediately, but in the meantime we're training ourselves to analyse and troubleshoot problems, which can only be helpful in the long term.
My half a penny.
