I might be lying there, it may not be ten, but it looks good as a header. I’ve been really struggling to find inspiration on writing matter this week, today is the worst day. I have thoughts for Tuesday as it’s Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday, then Squid Ink does Thursday but that’s it for inspiration.

I woke up early and didn’t feel it worthwhile to try and get back to sleep so I got up and started looking for inspiration. I know I can always scribble a few words about a book and I have two sitting in front of me that are prime candidates for that role but I don’t know I could do them justice today. I turned my computer on about 6:30am, it’s now 9:15 and I’ve given up. During that time I’ve had breakfast, talked to the rest of the family and tidied a little so I haven’t spent the entire time browsing the web looking for ideas. Onto the list:

1. Trade publications: I’ve looked at various newsletters and blogs including MM&M. It’s an interesting conundrum, how do you make a situation better without making it worse.

2. Facebook: I’m a member of a Melbourne Blogshare group and I wandered around their blogs. I found an article about the recent exhibition about Tiddalick the Frog at the Melbourne Museum and let people know she’s having a little competition until 4pm today.

3. The Bookshop Blog: Spent a bit of time there as they always have good articles and good information. Absolutely nothing to do with some of my writing being there; I should write more for them.

4. A Broom With a View: Browsed a couple of articles here and found nothing I could get a whole article about. Leighta does talk about the challenge of giving your book to someone else to read but as I don’t write books it feels a bit silly to write on that topic.

5. Book Hunter’s Holiday: Just as I’d given up and was planning to write about a book I was referred to this site. It looks good for the future but I’ve already spent far too much time browsing and not getting anything done today so it’s on the Blog Troll list.

6. TV Tropes: The random button on TV Tropes is a wondrous thing, it takes you to all sorts of information and I could see lots of use for it for the future but nothing sprang to mind today.

7. Melville House: There’s a lot of fuss in the ether about Amazon taking on the publishing industry, Barnes & Noble have taken a stand about it and will not sell books published by Amazon. The whole idea is interesting and I’ve been toying with writing something about it but I’m always reminded I don’t know enough about the publishing industry to write something legible about it. The wording used by Barnes & Noble is interesting and leaves a couple of holes, possibly for ebooks.

8. GnomeAngel: I mentioned my problem to a friend who told me she’d seen a mention of me on a blog. This took me to GnomeAngel’s blog, I do read this blog on occasion, making sure to catch up on all her news as she’s been through the IVF rollercoaster. This was really a distraction, not an inspiration and I mentioned how lovely she is on Twitter and Facebook, more procrastination.

9. Spoke to my daughter about the problem and she gave me an idea, but not one I can use right now as I’d need to do lots of research and lots of thinking. It would also help if I had another language and could check up some stuff in the original language as well, but I don’t. I tell people I have two languages, English and Australia!

10. Looked at my desk and surrounds to see the multitudes of books there. I pondered the idea of writing about the process of researching prices of books and how I go about listing them on the website or on eBay but that sounded way too boring.

If there was anything else I did for inspiration this morning I’m not going to list it as I suddenly realised I’ve made it to 10! It’s a stupid goal but I’ve done it.