Why I Almost Quit Writing
By
MF Hill
I don’t quit when I’m losing a board game or a tennis match. I’ve been married for thirty years, through job transfers, cross-country moves and child rearing, which I guess means I don’t quit at relationships either. I’ve never given away a difficult pet, even my dalmatian who bit my sue-happy neighbor. I always finish reading novels, and I’ve never walked out of boring a movie. I graduated from high school, college, and graduate school. If I enter a 5K race, I complete it. I once built a house from the ground-up. The construction took three years. My twenty-eight-year-old son still lives with me, and I haven’t given up on the idea that someday he’ll find his niche and conquer the world. That thought of quitting, never enters my mind. So why is it that I almost quit writing? I’ve never quit anything else. Had I simply been playing at being a writer prior to my gut check?
When I started my first novel, writing was an escape for me. My son and daughter are a year apart in age. My husband worked in consumer product sales, which meant that he traveled and we moved often. So, it was basically just me raising our children in unfamiliar cities and towns. While my kids kicked balls up and down soccer fields, I wrote in my car. In between homework, grocery store runs, and Cub Scout meetings, I edited. When I received rejection letters, I shrugged them off. I was exhausted and drained, but when I wrote, I felt alive. Though the other moms in my circle dreaded the empty-nest, I was excited. I would have hours to write and a quiet house to myself. This is what I told myself. But when my children left for college and I actually had time to pursue a serious writing career, I found myself reluctant to turn on my laptop. Though I sporadically attended writing group meetings, and critiqued submissions, my passion for writing fizzled. In the harsh lighting of my home office, I no longer saw myself as a real writer, more like a hobbyist wannabee.
For me, being a writer meant being traditionally published, and that hadn’t happened for me. Sure, I’d had some success. I’d completed six novels, had won awards at writing conferences, and I felt supported by my local writing community. But I hadn’t snagged an agent or an editor. I found myself contending with social media, branding, queries, websites, conferences, getting an agent, and computers. It all felt like a lot, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a part of it.
I remember wandering into a Barnes and Noble and spotting Kim Kardashian’s book, Selfish–a tabletop book of selfie pics of her butt–on display. As an average-looking forty-something mom, I felt unmarketable. I couldn’t imagine placing my traditional mystery and thriller novels within eyeshot of the glossy celebrity memoirs adorning the shelves. The writing industry was no longer just about words, and I struggled to cope with its complexities.
Not knowing what else to do, I opted to focus on craft. I told myself that not grasping the ins and outs of the publishing industry wouldn’t matter, if my novels were stellar. After hours spent writing and editing, I submitted pages to my critique group, made the suggested changes, resubmitted, and was told to make more and different changes. This cycle continued, chapter after chapter, manuscript after manuscript. I switched from third to first person, past tense to present and back to past again. I cut descriptions, changed plot points, altered my characters’ personalities, and began my novels in various places. I second-guessed words as I typed them into my computer. Overtime, my novels didn’t feel like my novels anymore, and I dreaded writing. How was this possible? The thing that had been my third child, my coparent, my traveling companion, my best friend, I now hated.
Okay, so when I said I hadn’t quit anything but writing, I lied. I quit running. But I still walk daily at a very fast clip, and I’d run if I could. And just so you know, I quit running for medical reasons and because it was painful. Pain¾I believe that’s what happened with writing too. Writing pained me. Writing was like running an endless marathon with plantar fasciitis.
So, I took a break…to heal. I read books people raved about, I watched binge-worthy Netflix and Hulu series, I attended my niece’s Disney plays and analyzed the dialogue, and I listened to my mother’s stories about her childhood in the Pocono Mountains. Potential plot lines, scenes, and characters formed in my head and percolated. Eight months after I put down my pen, I picked it up again and I started a new novel. Though doubting voices remained, they’d quieted and I ignored them.
I still struggle with the business side of writing and sometimes I want to smash my computer or slap one of my critique group members, but I give myself grace. I haven’t given up on the idea of being traditionally published, but my idea of success has grown. For me, success now includes self-publishing, blogging, mentoring other writers, and someday writing in my car while my future grandchildren kick balls up and down soccer fields.
Am I settling? I don’t think so. Like the publishing industry I once saw as so scary, I see myself as having evolved. So why did I almost quit writing? Was it a lack of confidence, dwindling stamina, the realization that my tech and social media knowledge were beyond weak? My money’s on all of the above. But what matters more than the why of me quitting, is the why I didn’t. The answer to that question is simple. Joy. On my best days, when all the messiness of the business is scraped away, writing still gives me joy. I consider joy to be one of life’s most precious commodities. It’s up there with love, peace, and coffee.
Keep writing. Be joyful.
