Writer's Ennui

My friends, I'm in a bit of a quandry.  Recently, the third book in Maureen Johnson's Shades of London trilogy dropped, and so I began re-reading the first book to remind myself of what was happening.  This is my standard operating procedure with series - I like to remember all that went before the new book, so I don't have to keep asking myself who different characters are.

My problem, however, was that as I read The Name of the Star, I realized that there were significant...similarities, to my own Paranormal Investigations, Inc. series.  I know for certain that I read this book before I started writing PII, so I have no doubts that I was influenced, but...well, it gave me a bit of a shock.  I know that stories have been told multiple times over the years, and that the books aren't exactly the same (no Jack the Ripper in my book, for instance), but it's still a little painful when realizing that someone else had a similar idea, and they wrote it better than you can.

I'm going to be stepping away from PII for a few, just to try and give myself some space before trying to work things out, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what to work on instead.  I have several works in progress, and I feel as though I should actually try to finish one of those before starting something new, but none of them are really grabbing my attention at the moment.  I'm the same way with books, sometimes - I have several books that are in-progress, but some days I don't want to read any of them - I want to start something new.

I guess it's time to go to the trunk, and see what lurks in there.  Wish me luck in the spelunking!