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"As Rick James' "Superfreak" played, I imagined I was Tessie Hutchinson from "The Lottery," and I'd just drawn the lottery ticket ordering my death. I threw the ticket on the ground and then I did this big dance in front of the crowd that planned to pelt me with rocks. I kept dancing and looking through the crowd to find someone who wasn't holding a stone. And there was Rick James, in only a leather codpiece and knee-high boots, reaching out to me. I took his hand and, as rocks flew, he pulled me up the side of the very same cliff featured on the back cover of his latest funk masterpiece, Throwin' Down."
 

That's my favorite riff from Susan Henderson's Pushcart-nominated story, "Motorhead." Besides freelancing for a stack of publications, Henderson runs the popular writing website, LitPark. It's hard imagine this prolific writer ever suffered writers block, and today she tells us how to beat that aurthorial affliction.

 
Welcome to the conclusion of my interview with Henderson; part of my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a serialized set of weekly interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing...

 
Jason Boog:
Writing is such a natural, powerful part of your life. I imagine you are very good at combating writers' block. What do you do when you're frustrated and blocked as a writer? How do you motivate to sit at the computer after a long day of doing everything else you do? Continue reading...

Susan Henderson:
I don't know if this works for anyone else, but it sure works for me and it was a miracle when I figured this out.
 

For me, there are several steps in writing that use completely different parts of the brain:

1-Researching a topic

2-Outlining (anything from thinking large ideas and story arcs to actual detailed plotting)

3-Free-writing (being in your zone; that trance-like feeling where a story writes itself)

4-Typing & line-editing (the fun stuff! making every line exactly the way you want it)
 

What I used to call writer's block was about being stuck in either the outlining stage or the free-writing stage. Then I realized I could just stick to whatever I was in the mood to do (today, I'm all about typing) and not try to force myself into some false poetic zone.
 

One summer I thought I had writer's block, I plotted an entire book. Later, when I suddenly found myself in my zone, I'd already drawn myself a loose map of where I wanted to go, and writing the book was a cinch.

I love this method because when I am in my zone, the last thing I want to do is waste it by doing things like typing and thinking.