This has all been so helpful and really interesting, too. A big fat thank you for all of your generous responses.
Randomly strung together thoughts to follow-
About the mindless, something other exercise. Jude's kitchen cabinets or Lab's bath. This is a good one. For me it's raking the leaves. (Sadly, all the leaves have now fallen. Perhaps I should spread them back out again?) Just doing something repetitive that doesn't require any higher thinking sometimes makes stories fall into my head. The other thing- where I spend half my life- is the carpool line at oldest kids' school. It works in two ways. First, it is absolutely mindless. And second, I generally don't have any way to write down what comes to me, just as Hazel said. I found Dr. Klein there, though, when I despaired of him ever showing up for my last story. His very few lines were all that I had left in a hundred pages, but because I couldn't "hear" him, I was stuck. So where does he start talking? Carpool. I sped home through the cow pastures (the cows are used to this) to get him down.
Another thing that no one mentioned is a deadline. Once upon a time there was nothing like a little panic-inducing "it has to be done no later than" to get me moving! There was no tweaking and no tinkering, just writing and that was it. Anyone out there want to volunteer to be my stern school marm? (Wait...do we have a FoLC who goes by that name? nevermind..)
Now, Labby, who has pulled me out of more than one corner into which I had written myself, is a brilliant BR. I get the brainstorming concept. When I couldn't figure out how to hide a villian in plain sight, she was right there, invisibilty cloak and all.
Her contributions notwithstanding, I guess what I'm really curious about is why I seem to have gone so quiet. That's what all of the above ramble boils down to. Inside my head- it's just me, no voices. (Does that sound crazy, or do you writer types know what I mean?) Like I look inside, and there's nothing- just tumbleweeds and the sound of the whistling wind.
I really appreciate that I am not alone in this. Nothing nicer to hear than 'been there, done that,' or 'I know just what you mean.'
Thanks everyone for all of the good suggestions. And the sympathy was such a nice bonus!
CC (who is off to organize her kitchen, bake with her kids, take a walk, have a soak, read something beautiful...hey, actually, that all sounds really good! I think I'll just let Labby finish the fic.)
