When the novelist Lauren Groff (who wrote the inimitable Matrix) has writer’s block, she thinks there could be a few different issues going on. It could be impatience or maybe a fear of imperfection.

There is also the block caused by what she calls the canary in the coalmine. This is your unconscious telling you something is off, potentially structural. Groff’s solution to this is brilliant in its simplicity:

… you may need to put your work in a drawer for a few months and reread it with fresh eyes when you’ve forgotten a good deal about it. During that time away, be in your chair every day, but be there by reading everything you can get your hands on, and you’ll find a solution in the hundreds of thousands of words you’ve read.

Put it away. Forget. Read. Get back to it.