The Dead Zone

The start of 2010 has been great: BTW went out to my first "readers" and I have 7 short stories bravely taking their chances as cannon fodder with literary magazine editors. The only trouble is that I'm not currently writing. Ideas flit past and shards of stories litter several spiral notebooks in my office, but nothing is growing. It's a dead zone. The harder I try, the worse it gets. How frustrating it is to have a string of snug winter mornings free of commitments, and.....nothing. Nada. Zip. Brain dead.
It seems to follow the capriciousness of the Muse that whenever there is a quiet spell, she is supremely bored. What she doesn't know is that I can see her quite clearly. Today, she is a lithesome 1920s femme fatale. She wears a tastefully sequined mauve dress; her dark hair is bobbed and wrapped in a feathered turban. She glares at me, her crimson moue tightening slightly, reflecting her disdain. The grasping efforts of mortals are so very vulgar. Raising the foot-long onyx cigarette holder which she has delicately pinched in her right hand, she taps a bit of scornful ash on my desk and stalks off to find a more fun party in someone else's head.