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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Mary Jaksch of GoodlifeZen.

Do you ever sit down to write a blog post, article or chapter and nothing, but nothing appears in your mind? This is the dreaded ‘writer’s block’. The good new is that if you use the following 15 tips, you will generate more ideas than you need, love the writing process, and never ever get stuck.

I find that some Zen meditation techniques enhance my writing. Most of the problems that arise in the writing process happen when our mind is at war with itself. At those times our creative energy is scattered, instead of being focused in one steady beam.

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“When it comes to facts, I’ll listen to anyone’s facts. But when it comes to opinions, I’m taking my own.” - Andrew Grove (reportedly)

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Clay Collins of The Growing Life.

Good research stands to benefit any writer, and quality research often delineates the line between a quack claim and an insightful argument. Substantive research gives your writing teeth, enhances its impact, and lends your words an air of credibility. Furthermore, good research can be especially indispensible when bucking conventional wisdom or challenging existing dogma. Finally, research can help us develop better parameters around our arguments and help us clarify our own positions.

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“You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair–the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.” - Stephen King, On Writing

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Amy Palko of Lives Less Ordinary and Textual Tangents. Amy is writing her thesis paper on Stephen King and has spent quite some time studying him.

What writing lessons can Stephen King teach us?

You’d think after many years studying King’s fiction and career I’d be well placed to answer. But as I chased round my mind for a list I could share with you here, it finally dawned on me that all other lessons disintegrate, like so many vampires caught out by the morning sun, when compared with the one key lesson I’ve learned and continue to practice daily.

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“Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.” - Laurence Sterne

While I don’t claim to be the world’s greatest writer, one of my strengths as a writer is the ability to write in a fairly conversational style.

I might not write like everyone talks, but I write like I talk, and I think it creates a more welcoming style of writing.

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“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” - Jack London

No matter how much you love writing, there will always be days when you need inspiration from one muse or another.

In fact, I would argue that inspiration is not just a desirable thing, it’s an integral part of the writing process.

Every writer needs inspiration to produce inspired writing. And sometimes, it can come from the unlikeliest sources.

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