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If episodes of writer¡¯s block are as common as headaches, are they also as easy to alleviate (¡°To steer clear of a writing rut, take a helicopter view¡±, Careers intelligence, 22 January)? Gina Wisker advises that you should ¡°plan what you feel you need to write¡± ¨C which struck me as treating the problem as a solution. That is, I can¡¯t plan that which I am mentally blocked from writing.

The phrase ¡°helicopter view¡± should also be used with caution, given that it doesn¡¯t explain much at all. If a writer has a block about what to write, these ambiguous two words don¡¯t describe any helpful aspect of what to do next. They might refer to a scan across previous headings or paragraphs, but that isn¡¯t the issue of a block that the passage of time itself may solve.

Neil Richardson
Kirkheaton