Try to write anyway, even if you feel your writing is trash. If you can't, take a break from writing without feeling guilty. Relax, exercise, eat well, and indulge in a few movies, or a favourite hobby.

If this block lasts for more than a month or two, visit a therapist. There's no shame in this, and seeing someone can save you endless months of frustration.

=> Eliminating "no info" block

You can also get blocked because you don’t have enough information. You're trying to write final draft, instead of tackling writing process draft by draft.

Here's a handy way to prevent "no info" block by taking your writing through clearly defined stages:

A. First draft: your thinking draft. In this draft, you write whatever you like. You're aiming for quantity here, rather than quality.

B. Your second draft. Your first draft has shown you what you want to say. In this draft, you have a crack at saying it.

C. Your clean-up draft. Your final draft. You've said what you want to say, now you get a chance to say it better. You clean up redundancies and spice it up.

In practice, stage B may have several additional drafts, as many as you need: B1, B2, and more.

The easiest way to kill no-info block for good is to allow yourself to write badly. Every day. This is because writing is hard when you try to think and write at same time. Allow yourself to think on paper for as many drafts as you need. Then write final draft with confidence.

=> Writing cycles

This isn't a block, it's a process. Everything happens in cycles, even your writing. Sometimes your writing catches fire. You're inspired. At other times, writing is like wading through quicksand, and it takes you forever to write 200 words.

Accept this. When you're in low part of cycle, aim lower. If your target was 1,000 words a day, make it 200. Or even 50.

Blocks are a part of writer's life. Use above tools to write your way out of them. As incredible as it may seem when you're in middle of a block, day will dawn when your block is not even a memory, and you can confidently say: "There's no such thing as writer's block!"

***Resource box: if using, please include***

Digital-e: For writers and creatives. Ebooks, free ezines, Creatives Club. Love to write? Turn your talent into a business! http://www.digital-e.biz/

Of course, these measures cannot guarantee that you will be fairly treated but they show client that you have a professional attitude not just to your work, but to way you operate. If you still find yourself victim of a non-paying client what can you do? First, you can find out what system exists in country where client does business for collection of bad debts. In UK Small Claims Court hears claims for bad debts up to £5 000. It is possible to obtain assistance with such claims online through a website: http://www.small-claims.co.uk/ . France also has an equivalent of Small Claims system in huissier de justice (www.huissier-justice.fr). Often mere mention of huissier is enough to make French debtors pay up.

Spain is testing out similar legislation but you have to live in country to take advantage of it. 'Spain does now have a new small-claims system in place,' explains Valerie Collins, based in Barcelona; 'You can go straight to court and file a claim for non payment without having to hire a solicitor. You have to have issued a formal invoice, and have proof that you have rendered service invoiced for (in our case, proof of publication). If you're owed money by a Spanish company but are not resident in Spain, you would have to give power of attorney to someone domiciled here if you wanted to file for payment, as they won't send legal notifications outside Spain.'

The disadvantage of these systems is that claimant sometimes incurs costs, so even if money is eventually recovered, part of it will have been eaten away by charges. So, poor writer suffers yet again as, no doubt, fees payable are already liable to outrageously high charges made by banks when they transfer funds from one country to another.

Other routes are to join journalists' and writers' unions and associations. These, however, may provide little more than moral support unless claim is really big and they think it worth supporting a claimant for benefit of membership as a whole. As a last resort, I suppose freelance writers could co-operate by sharing names of clients who do not pay. It might be unwise to publish such a list openly in case publisher became liable to libel charges, but I imagine it would be possible to set up an email list through which writers could distribute names on basis of 'caution is advised before working with X'.