Writing. Again.

Confession: I've gotten away from writing. I don't mean blogging. I don't mean journaling. I mean writing with a capital W. Writing fiction, stories, characters.

Since getting pregnant (umm, that's what? two and a half years ago?), my unpaid writing career has flushed directly down the toilet.

I've gotten away from it and I miss it. And I know it would be good for me to get back to it.

But it's hard to get back to it. It's not like riding a bike. It's like being away from work on a two week vacation and coming back and staring mutely at your computer screen, mouth hanging open, wondering what to do next. It's like working out again for the first time in ages, feeling clumsy and uncoordinated, muscles burning from dormancy.

And let's face it: I'm scared too. Yeah, knees-knocking scared. Scared I can't do it again. Scared it won't be the same. Scared that novel I loved and worked so hard on will be un-loved by agents and publishers. Scared I don't have another novel in me. Scared I can't get my mojo flowing again. Scared I can't find time in my life for it.

But what I know is that there is nothing else in my life like it. What I know is that I've had the heart of a writer since I was a child. What I know is that nothing fills me with joy like building worlds, telling stories, painting characters.

So somehow I have to break out of this stasis and find the flow again.

One thing that makes it hard is that I'm not sure how to channel my energies and spend my little time. I have a novel that is completed and it's a novel I believe in (although, per usual, the perfectionist in me wants to edit it MORE). I want to find an agent. I want to see it in print (or e-print, whatever). And the process so unknown and frightening, like a gaping black hole that would gobble up all my psychic energy and time.

And selling a novel isn't the same as writing. I want to write again. I need to. Something fresh and new.

So what do I do with my time? Do I write something new or work on selling what I've already written? Or (duh, answer here) do both?

Here I go...