Back for good?

Hello everybody,

long time no see. I'm back online, sort of. My free time is still quite limited -- I have a kid now, a PhD that I need to finally finish this year and after that a bit of a career change to organize, but I'm back. 

I've stopped doing creative work for several years. At one point, I decided that if it doesn't make money I can't really justify spending time on it, but I've wised up recently. Some things just need to be done to feed the soul, for no other reason other than if you don't do them, you're just half a person. I was like that for a while, doing only reasonable grown-up things, and I've shriveled up inside because of it. Well, no more. 

I've picked up writing again, to start with. I've updated Hope is the Thing with Feathers (FFN/Dokuga) yesterday. I hope to finish it soon, the last chapter is a remix of Serenade, expanded and adjusted to fit the context of Hope. it was that snippet that jump-started Hope in the first place, so I like that it comes full circle nicely at the end.

My current passion lies in the Hobbit fandom. I've fallen hard for Thorin Oakenshield, King under the Mountain and sulky special snowflake. It's the very first time that I find myself smitten with a character played by a real, live actor, so that's a bit disconcerting for me. Given my tastes so far, I'd have thought I would be lusting after Thranduil, who couldn't be more like my Sesshoumaru head canon if he tried, but no dice. Thorin it is. I'm so smitten, in fact, that I'm writing 2nd person fanfic about him, which I never thought I would in a million years. I didn't even know that was a thing until I took a look at tumblr for the Thorin gifs and got sucked in.

I don't paint or draw right now. I thought I never will again, but I'm already feeling a faint impulse to doodle, so who knows? I do enjoy doing watercolors with my toddler. One deterrent is the fact that I hate everything I've ever drawn/painted, except for Death of a Sun God, which is the one picture where I actually used reference (forced my hubby to hang half-off the sofa and shone a lamp into his face). I avoid looking at my gallery because I cringe so hard. It's not quite the same with my writing, but close.

But it's a journey, right? 

So, here are my current online haunts if anyone of you is interested in connecting:

MY TUMBLR
ME AT AO3
ME AT FFN

Also, how have all of you been?