Road Trip... Thursday?

So I'm sure most of you know about YA Highway and the cool stuff that gets posted over there. I'm especially fond of Field Trip Fridays and the This Week in Random section.

I always glance over there on Wednesdays and read their prompt and think, "hmm, I should do this, that would be a good idea." And then I never do.

But yesterday, when I saw that the prompt was "If you could travel back to any historical era for research purposes, which would you choose?", I said "OH MY GOD I HAVE TO DO THIS."

And then I promptly fell asleep. For the entire afternoon. (Which was great, but did not leave time for blogging.)

But because I am a history dork, I'm going to post this anyway.

What I *should* say is that I'd like to go to Paris right before the Revolution. It would help if this time-traveling involved instant translation (can I go with the Doctor? Pretty please?) so I could wander around and see what life was like in the months before the Bastille fell. I mean, I know generally - no one had enough to eat, etc etc. But how much did the common Parisian girl know about what was going on with the Estates General? How much did she care?

And while that would be the most useful instance of time travel, it wouldn't be my first choice. My abiding obsession... ahem, I mean love, of the Victorian Era would come in first. After all, in my English class junior year, when we were playing the "what time period do you want to be from?" game and everyone was saying the 60s or the 80s, my entire class turned to me and dubbed me reincarnated from Victorian nobility. I don't think I'd want to stay long - maybe about a monthlong holiday, long enough to have fun in period clothes and dancing with gentlemen who can actually dance and such, but not long enough to get bored of making calls every morning.

Seriously, once time travel is invented, someone is going to make a fortune catering historical vacations. I know I'd be first on line.

So... can I go now? Bustles and dance cards? Please?

How about you guys?

This must be Thusday...

... I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

So. I have a question for you lovely readers: how do you deal with writer's block?

Usually, it's not too bad for me. I just sort of flounder about for a bit and listen to inspiring music and talk to my beta about where I'm stuck and why, and eventually I get an idea and get unstuck.

But this time, I've been floundering for about two weeks, and I think I know the reason. It's happened to me before - when I set aside a story for a while (this time, I had to stop writing A Tangled Web so I could polish up A Bridge to War for querying) I lose track of the characters and often have a hard time getting back into the swing of things. And, especially since the edits to book one really affect book two, I'm having a particularly hard time doing that this time round.

Anyway, I'll go back to hoping that some inspiration will fall from the sky. Meanwhile, what do you guys do about writer's block? (Aside from beating yourself over the head with your keyboard, that is.)