SEVERE writer's block.

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I think that fundamentally you need to follow Yoda's advice: "Do. Or do not. There is no try."

Put ink on paper. Don't worry if it's crap or not. If it's crap, you can throw it out later. Right now, just put ink on paper.

It isn't writing per se, but there's a famous quote by a guy talking about a famous computer program he had written. He said that the best day he had on that project was when he threw out 1000 lines of code. Don't be afraid to throw stuff away.

Once you have something written, you can analyze it to see if it's good enough and throw it away or rewrite it if it isn't. You can't do that if you don't have anything already written down.

So put some ink on paper. Don't worry if it's perfect. It won't be. Then throw it out or rewrite it until it's good enough.

(Hopefully I don't come across as some sort of know-it-all. This is the advice I'm giving myself (and haven't yet taken) to try to get myself started on writing a couple of computer programs I've been planning on for ages. I think that your situation is similar enough that this advice will help.)

Who is this girl? How old is she? 10? 15? 27? 85 but looks like she's 22 because of the wonderful medical technology of the future? What kind of hair does she have? Blonde? Brunette? Redhead? Does she have freckles? Is she popular? Geeky? Outspoken? Shy? Does she have any romantic attachments? Do the romantic partners turn out to be significant later?

What kind of conspiracy? Evil? Morally questionable but arguably not evil? Government sanctioned? (If so, by what kind of government?) Does her father's involvement make him a bad person? How elaborate a conspiracy is it? What are the elaborations? What kind of human enhancements? Will they turn her into something more (or less) than human?

What kind of a father is he? Did she know him well before being estranged? Who was her mother? Will they reconcile at the end?

If psychological thriller means twists and turns in the plot, what are the twists? Are there shocking discoveries? If you're trying to keep the audience from guessing where you're going with it, what tricks will help you keep them from figuring it out?

Hopefully some of these questions will help you find a starting point.

FYI, I have been "just writing" this book since 2008.

I really agree with Ancalagon.

I have a great deal of experience with throwing stuff away. I've written fiction, computer programs and I've made motion graphic animations etc. In all cases I have hit points where things were not working and I couldn't find my way out of the problem. The solution that got me working productively again was usually to throw away most or all of what I was doing. Often the previous work is kind of like sketching rather than making a finished painting. You do the sketches to understand the nature of the problem you are trying to solve. Sometimes you write a hundred pages just to clarify in your mind what is the story you are trying to tell (as well as what isn't the story)

It is amazing how much faster the writing comes after you've thrown away all the extraneous stuff that isn't working.

It might also be a good exercise to set this project aside and give yourself the goal of writing something very quickly. The first feature length screenplay I wrote took me 13 months to finish. I was frustrated with how long it took and so I decided I would write the next script as quickly as possible. I wrote the second one in 16 days and it's a heck of a lot better than the first one. (remember better is a relative term here... both scripts are kind of lousy. )

Maybe if you can't find anything to write about your subject, it's because you just don't know enough about it. You might be better off putting what you've written aside and instead, doing research into current science of human enhancement or into the way actual conspiracies have operated. You may have already done research on these subjects, but if it hasn't helped you to understand what your characters might do, then maybe you need to do more.

Good luck.

I wish writing was like sculpture. For instance, to create a statue of David from a stone, you simply chip away what doesn't look like David. It'd be nice if you had a bunch of words and letters and simply get rid of those that aren't part of the story. That would be nice. Again, I emphasize the creation of an outline, especially for something as complicated as a novel. That's how I'm able to complete my short stories and novellas.

Still having a hard time writing anything.

I'm not saying you should settle for crap. But if you sit down and write whatever comes, even crap, over time, it gets easier. Then you can throw out the crap.

I'm not just saying this. I've struggled with AS all my life, but only figured it out and started working out how to deal with myself now that I understood what I was facing in 2010. I've always wanted to be a writer, and always struggled to write. And since 01 November of 2011, I have written almost as much as I managed to write in up to that time in my entire life. (Since I didn't start writing as a newborn, say those ten months saw me write about as much as I'd managed in about 40 years.) Writing is my longest lasting and most intense special interest. I won contests before I was a teenager and sold an article to a national magazine when I was fifteen. I obsess over writing, how to do it, how to do it better, and how to fit in more writing. That's why I'm taking the time, now, when I am sick from heat and dehydration and it is late and I desperately need to get to bed, to write out this advice to you - because writing is such an important thing, I can't bear to leave any writer stuck in this situation.

Now, I don't expect you'll get as drastic a result immediately as I have from just making myself write. One thing that helped me was NaNo. Yes, a lot of NaNo novels are crap. And even the good ones need a lot of work afterward. But in 2006, I signed up, and made up my mind to two things. One: I was going to "win". Two: it might not be a perfect draft, but I was going to make a serious effort to write, not just type random words or any of the other things those folks who don't consider NaNo an excuse to do some serious writing resort to. And I did win.

I've won every single year since then, with the exception of 2007. Why did I lose then? On 02 September, I found a very good friend dead on his kitchen floor. He wanted to be a writer, but had recently complained everything he'd ever written was crap. And when I got a chance to look through his apartment, there was no sign of any of his manuscripts, anywhere. So this hit me emotionally, it shook me up very specifically as a writer - and I had to help clear out his apartment, which was two hours away from where I live. I was exhausted from all the running back and forth and working late, and we finished at about midnight on Halloween. I was so exhausted, I was doing things the sleep scientists will tell you are impossible. Between the exhaustion and the emotional issues, there was no way I was going to win that year. But the point is, that I had some head start on making myself write. Doing it once a year for a few years gave me a taste of it. It gave me practice. And the more I wrote, the easier it became to write more.

Through long, hard practice, I've discovered half the things I thought were true about myself as a writer were dead wrong. If you can't move ahead on this project - start another one. That's a good strategy. Set what you have on this aside, and get back to it later. Buy Holly Lisle's course on how to overcome writer's block, if she still has it available, and take it very seriously. Holly is one of the few writers who understands the process, and writes advice just about any writer can use, if they'll take the time to think about what she's telling them. You could also go on over to Forward Motion, and see what help you can get there; it's a community of serious writers, and they have a lot of good advice.

But it is obvious, in light of my own experience, that whatever you've been trying isn't working out well. It may be this project itself which is blocking you. At least, in my experience, if I work on a project too long and get hung up on it, the only thing I can do is to set it aside and do something else. If I keep going, I'll just spin my wheels. If I set it aside, but don't work on anything else, I won't make enough progress to easily go back to it.

If you insist on sticking with this project, I've got one last, drastic suggestion. It is, in some ways, easier to reread what you've already written and revise whatever isn't working that you can spot. And there is one excellent way to gain some traction by doing that. Science has shown a certain connection between the brain and the movements your hand makes as you write. So write out a new draft of everything you already have - by hand, so it will stick in your memory, and this will also slow you down and force you to think about what you're writing. For several reasons, I recommend you find a fountain pen you like, one that feels good in your hand, and one that will force you to take your writing seriously. Pick an ink whose colour inspires you, and choose decent paper. Use those tools to create your draft. If writing out that draft doesn't get you going by the end of it, your only choice is to set the project aside and work on something else. If it can ever be saved, the time is not now, not if that technique (which I've used, in the past, when I was stuck at my worst - in some cases, I just copied existing poems and stories by hand until I could get writing, in fact - and had incredible success with) fails you.

As for the fountain pen, I'm serious about that. Yes, it is another one of my "obsessions", and a fairly long standing one. Most of the writing I've done in my life has been done with a fountain pen, and the rest was on a keyboard. I won't write with anything else. But there are reasons why I think a fountain pen is a vital tool for every writer to have, even the ones who will mostly use keyboards. Not just any fountain pen, either, but one that will suit you, and one that isn't crap. The pens in most stores are crap. Even the fountain pens. The modern, expensive pens are crap, too. They're "collectors items", not real writing tools. But there are decent pens out there, and a fair amount of them don't cost that much. (I can't promise any of them would suit you, and he could be out of the best options, because I don't have time to check his site right now, but HisNibs will sell you a pen that is at least a fair writing tool for $15, and I think Terri Morris still has some of the Sheaffers she was selling for less than $50 that will write better than any new pen you can get for $1,000 - her site is Peyton Street Pens, and the pen I'm thinking of is the Sheaffer Imperial II, the touchdown filler. C/C pens are (mostly) garbage. Okay, the old Targas weren't too bad, but they weren't that great, either. Although Ohto makes a nice compact pen for about $16 (I think it's called the Rook) that only has one drawback - the short international cartridges are so tiny you have to keep replacing them so often it will drive you crazy... Lots of other choices, and none of those might suit your hand. Depends what feels good in your hand, how you write, etc. Oh, and I recommend Noodlers ink. Not just because it won't wash away as easily as most inks, but because of the way it makes the nib feel. (Just stay away from the "Bay State" line.) Heck, you could start with a big bottle of Heart of Darkness (named after the Joseph Conrad novel) and fill up the free Platinum Preppy that's included with the eyedropper in the bottle, and that would give you a taste of what fountain pens can be. Preppies aren't that wonderful, and it will die on you sooner rather than later, but as long as it lasts, it is far from the worst pen out there.