In this post http://www.hatrack.com/writingclass/lessons/1998-10-29.shtml
OSC talks about writing Ender's Shadow and the difficulty he had with the beginning.

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What matters is that not until I got the opening right did the story start to open up for me. Now, I could have forced my way through using any of these openings, and the result might even have been a pretty good book. But it wasn't coming to life in my own mind. I was coming up against a wall each time -- later, mind you, so I knew I was getting closer, but still there was a wall, my unconscious mind telling me that I couldn't trust this opening, I couldn't hang a story from it.

When it did work, then I could flow on. It "wrote itself" -- that is, I never had to stop and ponder, for ideas just popped into my head the moment my fingers needed to have something to type. For me at least, that's when it's working, that's when I know the story is alive. Of course, you may have a different opinion -- but you aren't the one who has to write the story. I am! So if it comes to life for me, then I can write it. Your story, obviously, has to come to life for you.

If the opening is wrong, there's almost no point in going on until it's right.

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Oh, sorry I'm in the wrong place. I thought this thread was about medical problems.

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I'm glad I had already swallowed my hot chocolate, otherwise it would be on my computer now.

I find that if I have to force the writing, there's something wrong. I think most of us juggle enough projects that we can switch to something else. I switch between editing my novel to writing short stories. If those fail, I can critique stories here, or just post to the open questions forum. All of those have to do with writing. As long as you do something rather than nothing, you are progressing.