Somehow, somewhere, in this vast sea of notes and microfilm, I’ve misplaced my writing mojo.

It’s here, somewhere. I just can’t find it, or anything interesting to kick around and shape into interesting sentences or paragraphs.

When I misplace the mojo, I like to stop and examine the odd things found along the Emmett Wilson research trail (usually, I rediscover the writing mojo in that pile). Here is what’s in the pile of oddities today:

What, exactly, IS the “Dark Brown Taste?” I didn’t know a taste could actually have a color. Do you think Emmett Wilson would have known what this meant? Source: The Pensacola Journal, 1918.

Notice that this features a 10-day free trial! Did the Capital Cure Co. of Atlanta, Georgia, have many returns? Source: The Chipley Banner, 1898.

Er…yeah. Bust cream OR food. Good old Sears. Source: http://www.retronaut.com

This one is a little more interesting. I’d never heard of the ‘great’ Oliver Morosco, but here he is, with a snappy quote about what girls should do with their lives:

“Get into the sausage machine and work.” That’s his career advice for girls? And what, pray tell, did he mean by the ‘sausage machine?’ Source: The Pensacola Journal, 1917.

Apparently Morosco thought that ‘girls’ (his word) who were studying too much were a waste of resources. I supposed the ‘sausage machine’ was a euphemism for — what — any kind of job?

OK. Well, guess it is time for me to follow old Morosco’s advice, and get back into the ‘sausage machine’ of microfilm reading and writing notes for the book.

I feel the old mojo coming back. I’d never have guessed that I’d find it amid a collection of sausage machines, seminal rings, bust cream and a brown taste. But hey, to each her own.