A small, sickly bird

So strange, this story writing business. I haven't written a full-blown short story in eight months. Now, I have one cooking, and it seems to be good (at 897 words in), but I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid I'm going to kill it . . . burden it with my dead prose like dioxins, suffocate it with predictable dialogue, snuff it out with cliche conflict. I'm really liking it but, as though I'm on a date that's going well, I keep guessing that the next words to come out of my mouth (head) will be the wrong ones . . . the ones that end things.

Even tonight, I have a blessed two hours to work on it, and I haven't put down a word yet. I've played Bejeweled Blitz, checked email, read a story for an anthology I'm co-editing, and even added to my blog (which I'm doing now).

Have others experienced this . . . holding a new poem or story like a sickly, beautiful bird . . . wanting so much for it to get well and fly, but fearing that you're much more likely to crush it like Lenny from Of Mice and Men?