I am nearing 6 months into my PhD.
I am undertaking my PhD by publication.
I went straight from my masters to my PhD without a break and in six months I have moved across the other side of the world, started a PhD and a new relationship and now I feeling completely overwhelmed.
In these 6 months I have completed reading (obviously), data compilation, fieldwork, labwork and now I'm at the stage of writing. I have hit a brickwall. My ideas are not coming together properly the stuff I have written is a mashed up mess of ideas which has no tangible theme or ideas. I took time off over the christmas break which I was unable to enjoy as I was constantly feeling quilty that I was not working (my boyfriend was not impressed by this at all).
I want let my supervisor know that I'm struggling, more so he's aware than anything, but I don't want him thinking I'm not up to it as he was so impressed with my progress in the first 6 months. How do I explain this to him?

In addition to this I'm supposed to be putting a paper together from my master thesis, this should have been a quick job but we've been working on it for 6 months and I'm not finding the time to get it done, it realistically isn't that much work, but I'm struggling to find the time to do it and my former supervisor is chomping at the bit to get it submitted.

It's really important that you are honest with your supervisor. You have had a lot of changes recently - it's almost inevitable that you are going to feel overwhelmed. Your supervisor, if he's any kind of decent person, will think more of you for being honest. You say he is impressed with your progress already - this is good. I think you should let him know how you are feeling as soon as possible and just agree a working strategy to achieve the things that you need to over the next few months. You're six months in - you're not expected to have anything more than a mass of ideas at this stage so don't worry!

And please, try to enjoy the next time off you have - even PhD students need time to rest.

To be honest if I was you I would not be worried at all. I know plenty of people six months who are still not quite sure what their aims and objectives are. Im four months in and still reading!! you sound like you have made loads of progress if you have already done your field work. You should just relax and just do what you have to do one step at a time, worst thing in the world is to look at big picture, as you would then become overwhelmed with everything you have to do

First of all, I appreciate your progress in six months.
If your supervisor is very supportive, you can tell him that you are struggling to explain the results or whatever part of the article it is.
Whenever I wrote articles, discussions with my adviser helped me to complete the articles.