All forms of "Writer's Block" can be traced to one of these: The Inspiration problem and the Input problem

Writing is hard, there is no doubt about it. The internet keeps generating lots of noise every second which sort of gives the impression that a lot of "writing" is happening but really, how many best-sellers do you see pop up every day or how many truly successful professional writers have you met?

Most writers simply fail to write consistently, either they give up before giving a chance to their writing skill to grow and mature or they simply give up because their writing didn't immediately stood up to their measurement of "success" (which could be an instant bestseller novel, lots of wealth, etc.). In either case, the world never knows the story they had to tell which is a very sad thing to happen for all of humanity.

If you are one of those writers who keep expecting pay-checks every single day in return for your mind-blowing drafts then consider that Emily Dickinson wrote 1800 poems in her entire lifetime out of which only 10 were ever published!

Compared to that, we are all living in the digital age of publishing where chances are that a random rant written by a literary noob on blogspot easily earns more eyelids in a single day than Emily Dickinson received for her poems in her entire lifetime in those times. And yet, here we are ever loathsome and complaining whether my penned words will be a success or not.

The first step is to analyze your writer's block, reflect upon it and understand why you are unable to write when you take the pen in your hands, it is generally one of these two reasons:

Lack of Inspiration

This problem is relatively easy to solve. If you already know what you must write (whether its fiction, non-fiction, prose, poetry, essay, article, etc.) then its only a matter of showing up to your work place and keep doing your stuff until inspiration flows on its own. In other words, what you need is only writing practice, not the practical or theoretical knowledge of the basic stuff which you are going to write about (since we are assuming you already are an expert in that area).

Believe it or not but this problem is quite common in most aspiring writers. And yes, even the simple act of showing up to your desk and writing consistently isn't an easy nut to crack when enemies like procrastinator, victim, depression, critic, etc. keep blocking your way. If you feel that you are in their clutches and want to break free of them, I encourage you to read some of my articles on this topic:

1. Wish to become a pro writer one day? Sometimes, you need to run before you can walk!
2. Write, Write and Write should be your Mantra - Procrastination is the Writer's only enemy in 90% of cases
3. Unable to find the inspiration or mood for writing? Try this simple and effective technique
4. The power of rituals and how to use it to solve your problems
5. The Procrastinator and the Victim - Two Biggest Enemies Of Creativity

Lack of Input or Subject Knowledge

But in some cases, the problem is not inspiration but something else - the problem is that you lack enough knowledge about your subject matter or in other words, you don't have a story to tell! But before proclaiming yourself as defeated consider whether you are wasting your time in the wrong kind of writing? There are various kinds of writing even in non-fiction such as essay writing, article writing, journalistic writing, technical documentation, etc., are you sure you aren't in the wrong place?

Each human mind is a bundle of knowledge and inspiration, we do so many things every day and lead such complex lives that almost everyone in this world has got a story to tell, and this story must come out and all of us should know about it. Maybe, you have a problem in seeing patterns in what's going on and/or translating those patterns into a story. Once you start seeing patterns, your subconscious will be itching to tell its story to the world, neither the procrastinator or any other enemy of creativity will be able to stop you then!

Another extremely helpful thing you can do in this case is to read, read and read! Keep reading like a book worm about everything that relates to your job (or alternatively to the story you are going to tell through your writing). Reading is like generation of raw-material for writing, your writing is only a reflection of what you have within you, and a lot of that stuff comes from reading what other inspirational writers have already written about.

The kind of reading you do will depend upon your topical interest (or what you want to write about). Read the beautiful verses of Homer or Shakespeare if you are interested in literature, read every novel of John Grisham and Jeffery Archer if you are interested in writing thriller fiction of your own. Read everything written by JK Rowling or JRR Tolkien or Eoin Colfer if you are interested in writing an adventure fiction like Harry Potter, LOTR or Artemis Fowl.

If you want to write articles about technology, business or politics then go through each recently trending article of Gizmodo, Tech Crunch and Ars Technica. Before you can tell a story, you need to be able to have the power to create that story. Without that, inspiration or motivation alone cannot help, though you can write about a lot of stuff with that alone! It just won't be the kind of writing which you want to do, it won't be the story which you want to tell.