For the past few hours I have stared at the blank page, or searched the Internet for inspiration, but I am stalled.

I had all these great notes in my outline for the backstory of an alien world visited by my characters. A tale of its social decline and lapse back into an agrarian age, etc. There was just one thing I forgot to plan ahead of time:

What the damn aliens who live there look like. All day I’ve been stuck on this, and I’m stumped.

They need to be vaguely humanoid, but everything’s been done in Star Trek. There are no more animals left to anthropomorphize, it seems. And who cares about yet another distinctive bump in their foreheads? I feel as if I’ve already used up my quotient of cool alien details in the Destiny trilogy with the Caeliar and the brief walk-on by the Kindir.

In my own books I’ve already done the hawk/eagle-based species known as the Tezwans. No mileage to be found in felinoids, caninoids, lupinoids, etc. Bipedal rabbits, anyone?

I can’t believe that this is what has derailed my entire process….