Writer’s Block?

Question:

Hi, Phyllis! Wow, I can’t believe I am actually writing a famous author. 🙂 Well, I was just wondering if you ever have had a time when you had writer’s block and doubted yourself and did not know what to do. If so, how did you over come it? Well, I am absolutely IN LOVE with your books- you’ve got an amazing talent, and I enjoy the humor you put into the books! You really connect the plots and events to be what teens go through so it is something they can relate to! My friend reccomended the series a little less than a year ago to me, and I have almost caught up with the whole series with only about three more to read! I am hoping to find the ones I need to read yet before my family leaves on vacation at the end of the week, so hopefully I can find the ones I need at the library, otherwise I am going to need to do some SERIOUS cleaning around the house to bribe my mom to drive me to the nearest bookstore…which isn’t actually all that near. 🙂 Well, thank you for taking the time to read this and (hopefully!) answer my question. 🙂 It is a little down-casting to know that the series is almost at an end, but I know that you will make the last ones amazing and plus, whose ever heard of a writer with a never-ending series, right? 🙂 Thanks for being such an amazing writer and inspirer! Oh…which reminds me…do you have any advice for a striving thirteen year old who wants to become a writer? (That’s me.) :)Well, this message is becoming a tad bit long, (and also my brother is threatening to do something utterly atrocious to me if I don’t get off the computer soon), so thank you once again!
From one of your many biggest fans

Phyllis replied:

I’m not entirely sure what “writer’s block” is.  If you mean, have I ever got started in a book and didn’t know what to write next, no, I’ve not had that experience because I don’t start a manuscript unless I know a lot of things that will happen in it, what the climax will be, and how it will end, even though things change as I go along.  But I certainly have had the feeling that a manuscript isn’t going as well as I’d hoped.  Then I just have to back up to the place where things started to go wrong and take another angle, look at it again.  I’ve written books on the subject of writing, and recommend that you get one of them, “HOW I CAME TO BE A WRITER.”  (Paperback, Aladdin Books).  It’s still in print.