Creative Paralysis

How can having too many creative outlets be a bad thing?

When you aren't doing the one thing you were trying to have those creative outlets for.

It's the same old refrain. I am not writing.

To be honest, I am barely doing any of the other things I started to do to help me write in the first place.

• I am drawing and painting about once a week on art night.
• I am either knitting or crocheting daily with barely any projects finished.
• I have all of my stringed instruments staring at me from their lineup but I am not playing them.

I feel like a failure. I try to make myself feel better by telling myself that at least I am still creating by working with yarn. It doesn't help.

The thing that's been eating at me is that I was offered the chance to submit a novel to an agent. I started it but I could barely write fifteen pages and I had hoped that my other outlets would be generative but they haven't been. I usually write short stories, so writing a novel is a challenge for me. How do I sustain my writing style past twenty pages? What worries me was that they approached me after reading "Talking Story About Kilauea," which was an experimental work for me. I was happy to be recognized as someone they would be interested in but I just don't know what they saw in that short story to make them want to contact me.

I just feel stuck and I don't know how to get unstuck.