Stuck in a groove

My head seems empty. Where have my people gone? What has happened to that network of intersecting ideas, observations, random imaginings and memories, peculiar thoughts and inspirations, people who I don’t know and have never seen or met and places I’ve never been which only exist in my head, intrigues and mysteries and ponderings – where have they disappeared to? Are they lost in some mental filing cabinet, or have they trickled away  rain down a drainpipe? Has the mind-machine which turned them out – churned them out, got hiccups, got clogged with nonsense, got stuck in a groove like an old fashioned gramophone needle stuck in a groove.

In the past I was able to keep going, push myself on, keep writing, even if it wasn’t very good – because it could always be edited later, or just deleted. I would be writing in my head all the time, which was probably why I was so forgetful and absent-,minded. Now I have several different collections of characters hanging around, waiting for me to tell their stories. I mentioned yesterday that I’ve also got characters from completed stories and novels that I’ve gone back to – there is a couple stuck on Farholm Island in the fog, pursued by a sinister professor and the father of of the man’s dead wife. There’s another couple, stuck in a hotel having run away from their past lives, and two more people who are renovating an old house, except the husband keeps wandering away. And of course there is the story of Jay with her mysterious past, trying to lead a normal life with a new identity, except people keep getting murdered.

So there is plenty to work on, plenty to do, but my writing energy seems to have dribbled away, Maybe it’s because it’s so cold, maybe it’s because I haven’t been out and about so much. maybe, maybe, maybe… but who knows. I think I need to tighten my mental braces, roll up my metaphorical sleeves, give myself a good talking to, and just get on with it!