It's comforting to hear about very accomplished writers struggling (and solving) with the same kind of story issues I have. In this post, Nicola Griffith comes up with a solution for the common problem of having a character in her current project spending a lot of time alone, thinking. How to maintain tension, engagement?
Here's the snip:

Ever since I started writing Hild I've been searching for a way for her to have alone time that wasn't just wandering about in the woods. (Personally, I love wandering about in the woods, in real life and as a writer, but it is difficult to maintain any kind of narrative tension/reader engagement.) The other day the solution presented itself: Hild climbs trees. (I have Anthony to thank for this: I downloaded a sample chapter of Robert Macfarlane's The Wild Places and, bam, there was the solution.) So now I going through the ms. looking for places to feather in her tree climbing habit. Along the way I'm researching a variety of tree species and growing conditions, and the beasties that live amongst them.

…when you need to remind yourself you have a blog.
These are the same one's I stuck on my facebook, and are inspiring, and kind of linked in my mind — despite the now-archaic misuse of the word "man" for "person." 

"A man's got to know his limitations." – Harold Francis "Dirty Harry" Callahan

 “Let their work be to them as is his common work to the common laborer. No gigantic efforts will then be necessary. He need tie no wet towels round his brow, nor sit for thirty hours at his desk without moving, — as men have sat, or said that they have sat.” — Anthony Trollope on writers. 

“Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset? And he's carrying a beautiful rose in his beak, and also he's carrying a very beautiful painting with his feet. And also, you're drunk.” – Jack Handy 

I especially like the last clause of the Trollope quote, 'cause it's never a good idea to trust what writers say about writing.