What he said
I am a fan of Neil Gaiman for many reasons, and this quote from his latest blog entry is one of them:
...please wish me luck with this short story I'm writing. I'm up to page 19 and nothing's happened yet. Right now, they're eating porridge. In my head, by this point in the story everyone was going to be terrified, and strange oogly things would be happening to all the villagers. Porridge!
Gods bless you, Neil.
Sometimes, when wallowing under the crushing agony of writer's block, the only remedies are a) bitching and b) knowing that even the best scribblers in existence still have to put one word in front of the other, one word at a time, just like the rest of us poor suffering mortals.
Q
For lo, it is written: sometimes your characters will spring alive upon the page as though magically and blessedly given sentience by some benevolent supernatural entity...and sometimes, they will eat porridge.