Back to writing...

I may or may not have mentioned that I was laid off from my day job back in February. During this time, I have really began to fall back in love with writing. I was a writer in my teenage years and early twenties and I have written songs pretty consistently since I was 14. So, coming back into it full force seemed like a natural cycle in my life. I have befriended some writers online and have joined some fan pages and groups online that support writers and help them promote their work. Sounds all good and dandy but sometimes I get confused and discouraged at the sheer vastness of it all. I'm not sure what to "promote" on the promoting sites because I do not have any officially published works. I feel like a total amateur when I look at most of these groups. The ones that offer critique scare me even more. I'm not the most confident person to begin with and I feel that maybe trying to get some critique on my writing at this point may be counter-productive. If anyone is reading this blog, can you please offer some suggestions for a recently reemerging writer such as myself? Links, books, and other forms of reference would be much appreciated as would straight up candid advice. ~L.