Don't know what to write about (Don't know how to continue)

After you have finished with writing for that day, leave a note or two as a hint or a clue as to what you might write about tomorrow, how to wrap up the already started work, or where you left off the day before.

Keywords and unfinished thoughts can be a good way to get yourself started the very moment you sit down, ready to write.

Always have a little notepad, or a torn piece of paper at least, where you can note down your ideas and thoughts before forgetting them completely while leaving your work to take a bite or a break.

You can also record your notes with a voice recorder, enter them into the Sticky Notes on your desktop, or remember them by heart by repeating them out loud :) Anything goes.

If you cannot come up with a topic or even start writing about something at all, you should use some of your virtual friends' comments, which will certainly give you a musely push.

A really useful trick is to :

• Post a question or a topic on some of your social profiles like Facebook or Twitter. (and do it somewhere where you have lurkers and followers waiting around the corner for someone to post a comment or a picture, so they can react to it)
• Post a question containing keywords that you will base your topic on
• Make them somehow give their own ideas and advice about what you will later use as a material
• Provoke them with the rhetoric question

What you are doing here is practically provoking them to give you a ready-made topic or triggering the process of random brainstorming, which you can safely borrow.

Maybe you have just been chronically exhausted a couple of days in a row, or on this particular day. So if nothing else helps:

• Coffeine overdose,
• Forcing yourself to write, or
• Getting some fresh air before going back to work,

you are definitely pushing yourself to stay awake but are obviously not in a state to pull it through.

Find yourself a bed and sleep!

Get yourself charged, reboot and go!

Take at least 15 minutes of your time each day to write of whatever pops into your mind.

• Ignore the spelling and punctuation
• Make it random
• Play with your subjects
• Change the mood frequently
• Mix styles and registers
• Write hate letters to the people you are holding a grudge against, by writing a letter to them (which you will never send, of course) :)

Do this for a week and then return to your original project. Alternative is to freewrite 15-20 minutes to stabilize your thoughts, and then immediately return to your work.

You never know, you might come across a new topic by brainstorming like this.

If you're one of the extreme ones, this is the program for you. It is not about existentialism, it is about purposefully punishing yourself in case of a chronic idleness.

Write or Die  - an online productivity tool that actually forces you to write. Curious? Check it out for yourself.

Did you know that when you're sleeping, your subconscious is thinking, learning and writing instead of your conscious mind.

A good trick to let your subcoscious do the job for you is to think about the problem before falling asleep. You might have a dream which is practically a continuation of the story you are writing, or a potential topic you are yet to start. Usually, what you dream is the perfect fit in the place you couldn't finish properly.

It is amazing how the characters can come to life in your dreams and get the mind of their own. They will tell you what they want to be and how they want you to present them in your work. You might get a perfect conclusion to your thesis' problem. You never know who is awake in there while you are deeply asleep.