I talked last week about how I’ve been easing my way back into the writing game these past few weeks. I’m doing things kind of differently, at least for now as I get used to integrating writing back into my life. I used to be a very goal-oriented writer, believing that goals are what keep us going in life. I still think this is somewhat true, and I know that I never would have written and polished two book-length manuscripts while I was in my MFA program (and published one of them shortly after graduating) if it weren’t for the goals I was setting for myself each month.

But for now I’m leaving the world of goals behind. I have to. My life is too unpredictable, too uncontrollable right now with a five-month-old baby. Some days, it’s hard just to keep up with my teaching duties; writing, unfortunately, has to be pushed to the back burner for a little while. Amalie and the overall sanity of my family unit come first, teaching, second (because it’s my job, after all). Writing, then, is a luxury that I long for but can only indulge in sometimes, on the rare occasion when Amalie doesn’t insist on napping on my lap. (Every now and again, I go ahead and write while she’s sleeping on me . . . as, in fact, I’m doing right at this moment writing this blog. But trust me, it’s very difficult to type with only one hand free, the other supporting the body of your heavier-every-day child. My mind works much, much faster than the fingers on only one hand can.)

In some ways, though, I think this experience has replenished some of the magic in writing that had been lost from years of training myself to write almost every day. For a while, writing was like eating, or like personal hygiene: just one of the things you do almost automatically. And that was nice. But. When something is as automatic to you as brushing your teeth, it can sometimes lose some of its power, some of its ability to bring pleasure.

Don’t believe me? Try eating your favorite candy bar every day—hell, have two a day, maybe three. You’ll find very quickly that you stop enjoying it. It just becomes this thing you do. You might crave it, feel lousy if you don’t have one, but it doesn’t taste as good as it used to when it was a now-and-again, special kind of treat. (A side note: the same is probably true for you of soda, in reverse. Most people drink a lot of soda, so much that I think they cease to really taste it. I have some Sprite or Sierra Mist about once a year, and that once a year it tastes so, so good. If I make the mistake of trying it again a week later, it tastes less good. If I have another one, say, a week after that, I don’t like it at all. I can only have it about once a year if I want to experience that amazing, refreshing, delicious taste.)

Anyway, now that writing is this thing I badly want to do but can only do sometimes, I’m reminded how very, very much I love it. How good it feels when a story comes together. How exciting it is to read something I’ve slaved over and know that it is exactly as I want it to be.

In many ways, this is like taking several steps back in my progression as a writer. This is where I was, I don’t know, maybe ten years ago: writing only some of the time and being distracted with other things. But those “other things,” right now, are more important than my little scribbles. My baby is more important to me than anything I’ve ever written—there would be something seriously wrong with me if I didn’t feel that way. And I can’t help feeling like pausing a bit to rekindle my passion for writing is exactly what I should be doing now, anyway.

So. Instead of time goals, and, in fact, instead of keeping track of my writing time at all, for now, I’m just keeping track of the days. Which days I wrote, if even for only a few minutes, and which days I didn’t. I’m hoping that this will take away the guilt I feel when I add up the time I spent writing each month. The guilt is not helping. The guilt is not helping at all. I need writing to be associated with good feelings. The joy of getting lost in my own imagination. The thrill of learning about the world around me. I want to write because I want to write, not because I’ll get down on myself if I don’t.