I'm Stuck! Now What? (Coping with Writer's Block)

If you've ever tried to write, chances are, you've experienced it: the dreaded Writer's Block. It strikes out of the dark- suddenly, without warning- and BLAM! You're stuck. What comes next?!?!

How do you get past this dreaded demon? Here are some things I've found helpful:

• Take a walk, or a swim, or a jog, or whatever mindless activity gets your brain wandering. Talk to yourself, clear your head. Then wait and see. Sometimes I find that during a walk, some little idea will spring into my head that begins to untangle the mess that resulted in The Block.
• Delete the last paragraph, or page... or (eek!) scene. Sometimes I find that my problem is that whatever I've just written rings false to the pace of the story or the characters themselves. Sometimes if I just delete that last bit and start over, inspiration is reborn. If you're chicken, cut and paste your last paragraph into a new document so you don't lose it.
• Go back to the drawing board. And dont' be afraid to think outside the box. What if a meteor falls? Okay, maybe that's too outside the box. But stretch your previous concepts of the story. What if the heroine has a deep secret? What if the hero is injured in a car accident? At the very least, you'll learn more about your characters as you examine these options and their responses to them. Which brings us to the next...
• Have lunch with your hero or heroine or whoever is in charge of the troublesome scene. Explore your character to a deeper level. Interview him or her. What are his/her deepest dreams? What does he/she value most? Fear most?
• Take a nap. Sometimes you just need to rest. It seems counterproductive if you've got goals and deadlines to stop and take a forty minute nap, but hey... if you're stuck, how is staring at the screen for another forty minutes getting you closer to your goal anyway? May as well rest and recharge. Maybe it will give you the boost you need.
• Take your show on the road. Try writing with a different backdrop. The library, a coffee shop or bookstore even. This is admittedly easier when you have a laptop, but not impossible without one. Print out a character interview, take it with you and fill it out at your new locale. Print what you have of your story or chapter so far and reread it over a coffee and Danish. Make notes and write anything that occurs to you in a notebook. Maybe some ideas that have been eluding you will decide to show.
• Plow through it. Just push through the scene. Even if you know it's rough and not the right tone or voice, at least get the idea on paper. What's the scene about? What are the events that occur? I like lists. So sometimes it helps me to list the events in the scene that occur just as a guide. I may or may not stick to it, but at least it helps me focus on what I'm writing and what comes next. Sometimes I finish a scene like this knowing it's not at all what I want, but I will go back over it the following day or week or when the manuscript is finished and polish it up. Or delete it and rewrite it. But at least having something on paper allows me to move past the trouble-spot to the rest of the story.

So I hope at least some of those ideas are helpful. What do you do when you're stuck? What are some ways of Karate chopping the Writer's Block have you discovered work for you?