Not reading, writing and 'rithmetic, but repair, reuse and recycle. They apply to writing just as well as they do to saving the planet.
Every writer has a problem piece of writing, one that doesn't want to be pinned down to a page, that refuses to turn out as you envisaged, or that pings back at you with a 'thanks, but no thanks' every time you send it out. Instead of giving up and consigning it to the bin, try applying the three Rs.
Can it be repaired? Make yourself a checklist of features that you would expect from a competition critique. Look at the opening, closing, characters, plot, pace, title, length, style and language as if you were a judge. Prune away any unnecessary words. Would a more active verb make an adverb redundant and liven it up? Are your sentences convoluted? Are they all the same length? How engaging and believable are your characters? A few tweaks could make a big difference.
If your repairs aren't successful, perhaps you should reuse parts of the problem work in another one. Maybe there are descriptions or metaphors that would add life to another piece. Team up the characters from one piece with the plot of another, and they could create sparks.
Recycling by changing the point of view to a different character, or altering the genre, perhaps from historical to present day, or noir thriller to science fiction, can refresh and renew an idea you have worked on so long that it's become stale. If you still believe in the story but are having trouble writing it, maybe it's the format that needs changing. Rewrite a story as a play or vice versa.
Don't throw problem pieces away. Simply set them aside for a while, so you can look at them with fresh eyes, and roll your Rs!