Still not ready to tackle a novel. 

I've been dabbling with short stories and I've found out something interesting. With a short story, I can leave it alone for a long time and still pick it up later. With novels, I had to be fully immersed. The shifts in tones and character arcs and plots and just the overall flow required that I keep it all in my head. If I left a novel for too long, I couldn't pick it back up again without a great deal of effort. 

Short stories on the other hand have a single emotional thrust, and therefore can be reignited. 

I'm also playing around with poems or short essays to keep my creativity up. Not commercial at all, but still satisfying. 

I'm still a writer, but just not banging on the door anymore.