Thanks for this - yes, things have been quiet while I keeled over, but thanks to those of you have been posting. Hopefully, I'll be livening things up a bit now I'm kind of back in the land of the living... and maybe even encouraging some more people to delurk!

Regarding the pulling teeth thing. Yes. There needs to be a word for this, because it's nothing like so nebulous or excuse-like as 'writer's block'. It's that thing where it just doesn't happen - whatever the 'it' you're currently wrestling with is. And it sucks. My solution is usually to either walk away, or work on something completely different that I never intend to use, thus enabling me to sneak up on the thing I actually want to do, and write it when it's least expecting it.