I'll agree to that Manisims. My writer sim was level 6 or 7 and getting writer's block was pretty hard. I kept saving every 2 mins incase he died! Best way I've found through testing is just to bottom out the fun meter and have the sim as lonely and uncomfortable as possible then cue up a few genre's and eventually 'The Block' will hit.
In my experience I didn't have to get my sim angry or even particularly sad, just no fun, lonely, uncomfortable and tense.