It looks like my break from thinking about writing didn’t work. I’ve written exactly no new fiction this year. And for the life of me I can’t figure out why.

I mean, I know why — I haven’t had any inspiration. I’ve looked at my existing serieses and in-progress novels and nothing jumps out at me as an idea to continue them. I haven’t had any brainstorms for new books. Nothing has happened in my life that would lead me to write more short stories.

Am I just out of spoons? It’s entirely possible. I have a lot going on in my personal life, and one of my partners definitely takes up more spoons than she should — which is something I can probably figure out how to fix, although I don’t really want to take that step. I’m hopeful I can resolve the issues without doing so, but it’s not promising.

Another thing keeping me from writing more (I think) is the fact that I still don’t have a title for the Kristen story. The closest I’ve come is A Paddling for Kristen, and the cover copy would be something about how she got in trouble at work and got paddled, but that’s just the beginning of this phase of her spanking journey. I don’t love it, though. If I could come up with a good name for a spanking party, I’d drop it into the book in a few places and then use it as the title, but all the good spanking party names are taken. Anyway, once I have a title, I can continue the process of publishing the novella and maybe that’ll jolt me into writing something new.

I hate writing these self-indulgent posts about how I can’t write — stories about writers who can’t write are some of my least-favorite things — but it’s relevant, and I figured I should share it, if for no other reason than to let other writers know that it’s not just them, that lots of us have to deal with writer’s block, and that all the “solutions” (write every day is the one I hear the most) don’t work for everyone. It’s okay.

It sucks, but it’s okay.