I have had a big case of WADD (Writer's ADD) this week. I have unfinished chapters in the works on three different stories, and instead of finishing any of them last night, I was working on a short story that I haven't touched in almost three years. WTF?
Usually I'm not like that when I have stories in progress that I'm actually pretty into, but I've been in your shoes before, Mel. I went through that in 2008, after I had finished BMS. I had all these ideas that I had been hoarding during the five years I spent writing that series, and I was so excited about finishing it and starting something new, but by the time I did, I had a hard time getting going on any of my other ideas. I started some things and played around with some ideas, but never really got anywhere with them.
What worked for me was to write short stories and collaborate. I'm not a big short story person, but I wrote a songfic that I'd been sitting on for awhile, and I wrote a couple of challenge stories for here. 00Carter gave me an outlet to be creative and write stuff that was completely different from anything I'd write on my own, and then we got the idea for Song for the Undead, and that was the story that really sucked me back into writing regularly. Thank god for collabs, because I didn't have that novel of my own that I could really get into until last summer with Curtain Call. And Curtain Call was not one of the ideas I had saved in a file somewhere; it came in a burst of raw inspiration and refused to leave me alone, so I had no choice but to write it. I'm glad I did.
As much as I hate saying it, I think sometimes when you're in a slump, you just have to wait for lightning to strike with the right idea. I've tried manufacturing ideas, forcing them out, and they never go as smoothly. The two stories I abandoned to write CC, Secrets of the Heart and Guilty Roads, were both manufactured ideas, and although I like them, I don't have near the same level of inspiration for them.
But try some one shots or challenges, maybe try collaborating if you can, and see what happens. Sometimes you just have to get yourself writing something, anything, to get the creative juices going again.