Finding a Way to Write

Other than the aberration of NaNoWriMo, I haven't written since this summer. I haven't been in the mood. And yet, I have been getting ideas for new stories. So I've thought about working on them, but I just can't bring myself to do that while my two WiPs, which are both around 50K words at the moment, languish in the background. Meanwhile, my incredibly talented beta-reader (this should probably actually say "unpaid editor," because she's that amazing), Kathryn, has been reading one of the WiPs at my request, and showering me with encouraging praise, also at my request, in an effort to jump-start my mojo again. So far, to no avail. And it's all starting to affect my mental health, as not-writing tends to do after enough time passes.

I could whine for several paragraphs about why this is all happening, but what it really comes down to more than anything is time management. And what I realized this morning is that what I must figure out a time for writing other than during the little one's nap, because that's not working at the moment.

The only other time I can come up with is in the early morning. This time period hasn't historically been a successful one for writing, but I think I have to try it, because maybe doing that will kick my mojo back into gear and I will be able to do it during the little one's naps again. I suppose we'll see. At worst, I'll wake up early a couple of times and get a couple of thousand words written, and then I'll decide I can't maintain the schedule, and that will be that. At this point, a couple of thousand words is better than no words at all.

I'm kind of excited to try this. :)

How about you? Do you have any tricks for jump-starting your creativity when you're in a slump?