Writing and creativity and goals

The time is coming where I have to decide whether to sign up for getyourwordsout again. I haven't officially checked in on my goals for the year yet, but I hit 240 days earlier this week, and fell way, way short of my stretch wordcount goal. I've also found myself very uninspired to write any fic, especially the latter half of this year; DW entries and ladybusiness work is a little easier, but I'm still nowhere near where I want to be.

So the obvious question is: where do I want to be? Much as I want to blame this long-term slump on living in the world post-November 2016, the fact is that my creative drive started slipping a few years before that. I've had to adjust to lower levels of inspiration, a decreased ability to concentrate in general, and an unpredictable work schedule. There's a change to that last piece, at least -- I've switched to a 30-hour/week work schedule, which is great for financial stability but it means that I'll have less free time than I've gotten used to having. Then again, maybe that will help. I wrote a lot more and much more consistently when I was still at the art school, despite the fact that I worked at least 40 hours and sometimes more. On the other hand, when I was at that job I felt more free to check in on Tumblr and chat with people during the day. For various reasons, that doesn't work as well in my current organization. I was able to be more active in fandom communities, and that's a huge way I get inspiration for fic writing. I've missed that piece, desperately, over the last couple of years. I enjoy the circle I've built for myself here, but it's not as good for picking up free-floating ideas as Tumblr was, or the old days of LJ. Nothing has come along to replace that creative wellspring, and I'm not sure anything ever will.

All that said, I don't see a good reason not to sign up for the 240-word Habit Pledge again, but I wonder if I should focus on non-fiction writing instead of fiction, at least for the first half of the year. See how it goes. And get serious about scheduling time to write, instead of putting it off and then ending up with no real energy, only a enough time to toss off a few words of a story or a quick journal entry. Worth contemplating, anyway.