To my help my thoughts of beauty, I have begun listening to things which are (supposedly) beautiful, or at least more beautiful than I can produce right now. By listening to wonderful prose, I hope that it rubs off over my dry and matter-of-fact prose.
That's actually very good. That means that I've gotten to finishing work in 9 months for the current book. I have a reasonable shot at having it edited by the end of September, which meets my self-imposed 1-year deadline.