My entire creative life has pretty much been one big arms race, always trying to work out new ways to 'trick' my brain into doing work instead of whatever faffing about it felt like doing, and then trying not to think about it too much in case it worked out what was happening. I only need these tricks for the slow periods, when I don't feel like working. During the peaks, it's not a problem - in fact, the opposite is almost a problem, of remember to do normal life stuff like sleep. But the slow periods have always needed every little wheedling trick I could think of to get my brain to behave.

The ten minute rule used to work well for me - you can do anything for ten minutes, and I'd sit down and do ten minutes of writing, and it would magically turn into thirty as I got into the chapter or story and didn't want to stop.

My brain's caught onto that, now. I'm in a creative slow period, and it's actively resisting anything that I'll get engrossed in. Writing scenes is like extracting bone marrow, as a scramble about with the story at arm's length, trying to write around it instead of into it. I don't really know why it doesn't want to get engrossed in anything, it just doesn't.

My mother had the notion of actively enforcing the ten minute rule - I have to stop after ten minutes, even if I'm really engrossed. Hopefully that might help kickstart my interest in my projects again. If nothing else, the promise that I'm only doing this for ten minutes should help, so that a) I stop feeling like I can't write because I have to go out in half an hour, or b)I can get ten minutes done pretty much any day of the week.

If anyone else has tricks they use to get themselves working when they don't want to, please share in the comments. In the meantime, I'll share this, which is pinned above my desk: