Getting Reacquainted with Creative Writing

This blog started out as a place for me to discuss my writing (mis)adventures.  It morphed into something else entirely, something that more closely resembles a mommy blog.  It became a place for me to record the mundane and the exceptional moments in our daily lives.  I've highlighted youth and school sports.  I uploaded vacation pictures.  I've droned on about books and school and whatever else I felt the need to discuss.  What soon became absent from the blog, though, was my writing, the very thing that prompted me to start blogging.  

This was mostly because I stopped writing and turned my attention to more immediate concerns, like work, family, and school.  I no longer frequented my writing groups - the online or the face-to-face communities.  I lost touch with the majority of my writing friends.  I opted out of writing challenges and focused my brain power on obtaining my degree.   

However, since graduating this summer, I've had writing on the brain.  I've been thinking a lot about writing the follow up to Fallen Angel.  I know it's going to be a challenge, and I'm more than a little intimidated by the prospect.  There is a part of me that is convinced I'm not up to the task, but I try not to listen to it.  I need to trust in my process.  Of course, if that doesn't work, I'm sure my "beta readers" will stop me from completely embarrassing myself when they get their hands on the revised-but-still-rough draft.  Not the first dreadful draft, mind you.  That mess will be for my eyes only!  

Well, mostly for my eyes only.  I may post the occasional snippet here on the blog, but those snippets may not end up in end product.  I may edit or even scrap them during the revision stage. 

The revision stage...that seems so far away right now, especially when I'm going to be starting fresh on the story come November 1st.  The 50K I need to write that month will probably get me to the halfway point. And hopefully that 50K is usable.  

As November approaches I will be doing all I can to prepare myself.  The first step is to know my characters and their back stories.  I'm also working out what each character wants and what stands in their way of getting it.  This will create various tensions and contribute to the larger plot-advancing conflict.  All good things.  

Yet, I'm still afraid I'm going to have trouble rekindling my creative writing juices.  I feel so out of practice!