by Jim Bessey

Created on: October 21, 2009

There's only one valid excuse for you to let writer's block beat you: "coma."

We've all found ourselves staring at that empty paper or monitor screen, waiting in frustration for inspiration to leap into our fingers. You can cure writer's block forever. All you have to do is walk away from that blank paper long enough to open your mind. Here are six tips for fiction writers and six more for non-fiction writing - guaranteed results, or your money back.

Six tips to cure writer's block for fiction:

1. Close your eyes and listen.

Choose a different sense to take in the world around you. Listen to all the noises in an empty house or a crowded mall. Or go to a restaurant and concentrate on your sense of smell. Examine something familiar by touch. Enlist a friend to help you do blind taste-testing; you'll be amazed how foods taste when you can't see them.

2. Put your head in the clouds.

Open up a folding chair or beach blanket in your back yard and ponder the clouds passing over. Pick one and decide what it might be. Kids do this all the time, and they NEVER suffer writer's block! Try it at night, when the stars are out. Create your own constellations.

3. Spy on a crowd.

Grab a corner seat at Starbucks or your favorite diner. Watch the other customers and take notes. Give them names and occupations or life-threatening diseases. Choose three "characters" of diverse backgrounds and compose a two-page short story about them on the spot.

4. Take a walk.

Choose a direction and set a time limit, then walk. This works in the woods or on busy city streets. When time's up, absorb your surroundings in great detail. Use that setting in something you've been working on, or compose a fresh story centered on it.

5. Listen to the radio.

Every song tells a story. Even talk radio can lead to unforeseen ideas. Pick one song and write a prose version of it. Use a discussion you heard on AM radio as a scene detail in a longer work. Next time you're reading a novel, notice how often authors include something from the airwaves in their narrative.

6. Phone a friend.

Drop everything you had planned and call someone you haven't talked to recently. Don't set an agenda, just talk. Ask your friend what she's been doing today or this week. Let the conversation go wherever it wants to. Take notes. How can you go wrong by using this suggestion?

Six tips to cure writer's block for non-fiction articles:

1. Exit your comfort zone.

Choose a topic that baffles you, or one you've never

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