Using Distress Stains In My Art Journal

I haven't worked in this journal for awhile.  I decided to play with Tim Holts Distress Inks and just get some color on to the page. I don't use them a lot and I wanted to change that.  I created three backgrounds to work with.  This is the first completed page, others will come this week in future posts. I created a image of a woman as I often do. Then came the doodles and a poem. I picked it for just the color and how it looked on the page. It seem like a New year, letting go type of poem. Perhaps there is meaning inside of it if I look deeply. Maybe there are things I need to let go of.  

Later I added journaling to the page.  All those lines flowing out of her head seemed  Here is the poem so you too can enjoy it.

I am running into the new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that I catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises
it will be hard to let go
of what I said
about myself
at sixteen and twenty six and thirty six
even that thirty six
but I am running into a new year
and I beg what I love and leave
to forgive me

Lucille Clifton

I have insomnia tonight, so I got up and finished this page. This was created with the same distress stains except for the face. I used Golden fluid acrylics for that.

I have a crisis going on with my novel.  I have to change a big portion of it and frankly I am stuck on where to begin.  I need the muse to visit. To inspire me where to go, to lift a depression I feel myself sinking into. Sometime art journaling helps. Just where do ideas come from?  Its a place I need to travel to this week. Yes, even I lose focus and lose my way.  Its all part of the creative process but on days like this is really is not a pleasant place to be. I have techniques, tools I use in times like these and I'll be putting them to the test this week.

Tell me what do you do to call back the muse, to inspire yourself to keep going when the gremlins arrive to pull you down?