It’s true. Writers can find inspiration anywhere.

My writing efforts have seriously been derailed lately because of one thing or another, but I’m feeling that itch to finish my current manuscript — the one about the psychic medium investigating a serial killer in Charleston, South Carolina — because all of these other ideas keep coming to me that sound awesome to explore.

My mind has been scattered ever since I found out my kitteh sidekick, Dusti (or DustiAnna as I sometimes call her), needed a dental procedure to remove a tooth. She had the surgery, but they actually found five teeth that needed to come out. Five! They removed the three worst ones on one side of her mouth, but she’s still gotta have surgery next month to remove two on the left side. I've been a nervous kitteh mom wreck for about a month, since I first learned she needed this, and it threw my imagination and motivation to write all out of whack.

My poor lil kitty. Look how pitiful she looked after surgery.

Yesterday, I took her for her one-week followup. The senior vet in her practice did the surgery, so I met with him. He’s a delightful, seemingly grumpy ole fellow who dresses funny. Long story, but I ended up back in his surgery clinic to fix his computer. While I was there, I couldn’t help but take in the small, cramped space and all of its many gadgets. My mind immediately went to “Is this what the dissection rooms in alien spaceships look like?” I think so. And I started imagining what all of those strange instruments did. I blame Mulder and Scully for this.

That was the first sign my writing mojo was coming back.

Today, I was reading the blog post at Here Be Magic by Veronica Scott, about the sinking of the Titanic. This got me to thinking about a little known fact: my birthday is April 15. The day the Titanic sank. It’s also the day Abraham Lincoln died, and of course, it’s tax day. I’m one more in a long list of tragedies. I’m really over the whole birthday thing — I stopped counting how old I am when I hit 35 back whenever that was — but I have to admit when my birthday rolls around, I do find it kind of cool that I was born at exactly 4:15 p.m. on 4/15/I’ll-never-admit-the-year. A psychic’s spam sent to my inbox every so often assures me there’s a cosmic significance to that fact and that I am, in fact, destined for great things because of it. I’m wondering when my superpowers will kick in, because they haven’t yet.

Now I’m thinking of all kinds of ways to work this into a plot.

Yes, I know I’m weird. So what?

Point is, if I can find inspiration to write from something as dreaded as my own birthday, I’m a happy gal. My writing mojo is starting to flow through my veins again. Oh, how I’ve missed it so…