Full of ideas, but all out of words

Well, after more than a week of upheaval, Diva and Blue each have a beautifully clean and tidy bedroom. We've thrown away enough rubbish to build a recycled replica of Buckingham Palace and I now have a dozen black bags of clothes in my hallway waiting to be donated to charity. Yesterday we visited the local library and handed over as many books as the three of us could carry up the hill, and any week now someone from the council will come and remove the sofa-bed from my driveway.

The only trouble is that somehow every single room, apart from the girls' rooms, is now a complete mess and full of things that don't belong there. The garage is overflowing with stuff (it's a good job we no longer have a car!) that nobody seems to want but we absolutely have to keep and, now that they have perfect rooms, Diva and Blue have lost interest in helping me. I don't blame them. They've worked really hard, they deserve the time to relax. Just like everything else round here, it'll get done. Eventually.

You would think that all this physical activity would really put a dent in my writing time wouldn't you? Well, you'd be wrong. The truth is, even before we started the house beautiful project, my writing had trickled down to almost nothing. I've been wrestling with trying to revise Looking for Lola (my one and only full length first draft) for weeks but I can't seem to make the story do what I want it to do. I think there's one of three reasons for this. The first could be that I'm just not a good enough writer yet to fix what I think is broken. The second could be that I just need to give it even more time before I go back to it – in which case, this week will have done me good – or the third reason (and the one I'm most worried about) is that the story itself just isn't good enough. I'm not sure which it is, but I'm not ready to give up on it just yet.

I did start to write another story, but a few thousand words in I wasn't sure the idea I had was strong enough to sustain a whole book. I haven't given up on that one either though, I mulled it over and made the odd note in my head as I threw furniture and moved rubbish. Then yesterday, something Diva said on the way home from the library gave me the germ of an entirely new idea. I jotted down a few thoughts and tried to file it away but it keeps coming back to me. There's not enough there yet to sustain a whole novel but it's coming, I can feel it. I'm a bit nervous about this latest one because it has to be set in an American high school and all I know about American high schools is what I read in books. Still, the internet is my friend, so it needn't be a deal-breaker. Whatever I decide, I need to do it soon. It's been a long time since I've gone so many days without writing anything, and just as I thought I was getting better too!

So, come on guys, what are you all up to? Has anyone else been through a slump like this? Am I wrong to try and force some words out, however bad they are, or do you think the act of writing itself is enough to get creativity kick started again?