OOC - Writer's block

Inspiration can be hard to come by. It is like a strange illusive worm. Worm? Is that a good analogy? I used to think that reading a book or browsing some random Wikia site would fill me with inspiration. Most often, I would say that I need to watch this TV show, or I need to watch this film because it will give me great inspiration to start writing.

But it would just fill me with other people’s ideas. And I would just dump those ideas with a different flavour or a different colour onto the page thinking that it was inspiration. Sure, it overcame my writer’s block, but I do not think I was writing anything particularly original.

I think it is good to get inspiration from other’s ideas. I am sure a lot of my writing has been informed by what I’ve read and what I’ve watched and what I’ve heard just as much as I have been informed by what I’ve lived. But to write something new, to keep me coming back to the story I am trying to write needs more than just repurposing other’s ideas. For me, at least.

I usually need to get away from the screen. So, something else, like a chore, before I can come back and get some new ideas. But it can be a slow process, often a whole day to produce only a few thousand words. How do you overcome writer’s block?