@Lincoln55 -- Been there a few times, my friend. My usual solution to the problem is to deliberately set it aside and let it molder for a while in a dark corner. The most difficult part of that is not thinking about it so I find myself forcing the old gray thing to avoid that particular work. Anyway, after about a month or so, I pick it up and read it cold from the beginning to however far it has gotten.

I know this might sound a bit strange, but often I have found that my beginning has been keeping me from a proper ending and that rewriting the way the thing starts out lets me slide into home plate without dirtying my jersey. If the opening isn't what's doing it, it's frequently because I've lost sight somewhere along the way of where I had originally wanted it to go. When that's the case, I get a colleague to read what I have and get some opinions. That might trigger the memory of where I was headed or it will give me some ideas that likely hadn't occurred to me.

It's worse than staring at a blank first page.

I confess I’ve been staring at a brick wall for a couple months but in the past ‘gossiping’ about my characters to a friend often gave me ideas on where to go next.

I'm in a position where I have several completed and more unfinished. I don't know how to do the next step.

Recently I started writing a screenplay and the story is stuck without an ending. I know what i want the messge to be; but, i can't get it out.

A friend of mine once told me that writing is a job of isolation. And that's mostly true. It's a lot of emotions to get the words together while trying to keep my bills paid. Frequently i feel like i fail on both fronts. And because of the isolation, i'm in it alone.

So what do i do? How do i get through these periods of new beginnings without endings??? Acknowledgement of small victories. Honoring the random thoughts and scraps of paper holding notes. Reading other work and honestly comparing my writing to it. Is the work i intend coming through? It's hard. A whole bunch of questioning.... But i have to brave the answers to know if it is a piece worth the waste basket or more ink & paper.

Erato can be a real fickle bitch when she wants to. Leave it on the shelf until you get an inspiration!