on Writers in the Storm blog:

When your story stalls take heart—it’s not the end of your novel.

It stinks, but every writer gets stuck from time to time. Some days, it’s a short stall and you struggle with a single scene for a few hours before figuring out how to move forward. Other days, the problem is bigger than a scene, and it keeps you from writing for days or even weeks at a time. You write a scene, scrap it, write it again, but it just doesn’t want to work. You get frustrated and that keeps you away from the keyboard.

Which can actually be a good thing.

Getting stuck is your writer’s subconscious telling you there’s a problem, and keeping you from making it worse.

Your brain knows there’s something not right and it’s putting on the brakes before you write nine chapters and then realize you have to scrap the whole things and start over. Yes, it’s hard, and de-motivating, but so is throwing out all that work—or worse—forcing it into the story when it doesn’t belong there.

Most often, getting stuck is due to a plot or story issue. Once you figure out what you’re missing, the words start flowing and you can get on with your manuscript.