How Do you Quit? (Teal Deer Coming)
- Thread starter Riley
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I've had other people tell me I should quit because my writing is so bad, and I'm still at it. 
For what it's worth I understand your position totally and I have considered the same thing myself, but at the end of the day I can't stop. Ideas just come no matter how long I put stuff down and I end up fiddling with some story or other. So I reckon if you can't quit then there's something in you that still wants to write, only the other stuff is getting in your way. I'd second the suggest of trying something new, like children's or a different genre, and maybe even take a break from having it critiqued and just write for you own enjoyment. I find that sometimes there is so much advice and so many 'don't do this, always do this' statements that I can't think any more to create something, so I need to shut it out and just convince myself that editing will sort it out later.
For what it's worth I understand your position totally and I have considered the same thing myself, but at the end of the day I can't stop. Ideas just come no matter how long I put stuff down and I end up fiddling with some story or other. So I reckon if you can't quit then there's something in you that still wants to write, only the other stuff is getting in your way. I'd second the suggest of trying something new, like children's or a different genre, and maybe even take a break from having it critiqued and just write for you own enjoyment. I find that sometimes there is so much advice and so many 'don't do this, always do this' statements that I can't think any more to create something, so I need to shut it out and just convince myself that editing will sort it out later.
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Wow, this thread has gotten quite a few replies, hasn't it?
I've been taking a look at some of my old writings (especially diaries) to see if I could figure out why I write. If I could just figure that out, maybe I'd have more hope. Most of my earlier writings are illegible. I wrote them in pencil and cursive. But there is one I found where I wrote something along the lines of: ". . . wish I could be in that fantasy world, with dragons swooping, unicorns prancing. . ." Jan. 10, 2002. July 4, 2000, "I see the dragons, but no one else does."
It was then that it clicked.
It doesn't matter why I started writing, it matters why I continued. I continued writing because I felt people couldn't see what I could see, and I wanted them to. I wanted people to go on the same adventures I went on. They had to feel what I felt, see what I saw.
Along with that came the realization of why my "standard" as a writer is so closely intertwined with being published. If I don't get published, I'm not sharing and, before I completely understood it, it was driving me to despair. I feel like I'm keeping something from the world. I'm not saying it's wonderful, life-changing, or particularly magical, but it's what I've always wanted to share.
I would have shared my stories through other mediums, but words have always come so easily to me. I loved stringing them together, or smooshing up two words so they made something completely different. I carried around dictionaries with my favorite words underlined and marked with tiny scraps of paper. I kyped the plot lines from my favorite video games and translated them into five-page "novels". I wrote comedies, trying to capture the things in life I thought were funny.
There's that part of me that wants to stop because my continuing in the face of everything is just insane. But I can't. I've realized that, for as long as I live, whether I like it or not, I will sit down every evening and almost every free time during the day and write.
Someday, maybe I really will share the things that I see.
Thanks for commenting, you guys. You forced me to think and take a look at my motivations. In doing that, I unburied the real reason I write and why I always seem to go at it with such passion, despite any common sense I may try to inflict upon myself.
I just had an idea for a short story.
I've been taking a look at some of my old writings (especially diaries) to see if I could figure out why I write. If I could just figure that out, maybe I'd have more hope. Most of my earlier writings are illegible. I wrote them in pencil and cursive. But there is one I found where I wrote something along the lines of: ". . . wish I could be in that fantasy world, with dragons swooping, unicorns prancing. . ." Jan. 10, 2002. July 4, 2000, "I see the dragons, but no one else does."
It was then that it clicked.
It doesn't matter why I started writing, it matters why I continued. I continued writing because I felt people couldn't see what I could see, and I wanted them to. I wanted people to go on the same adventures I went on. They had to feel what I felt, see what I saw.
Along with that came the realization of why my "standard" as a writer is so closely intertwined with being published. If I don't get published, I'm not sharing and, before I completely understood it, it was driving me to despair. I feel like I'm keeping something from the world. I'm not saying it's wonderful, life-changing, or particularly magical, but it's what I've always wanted to share.
I would have shared my stories through other mediums, but words have always come so easily to me. I loved stringing them together, or smooshing up two words so they made something completely different. I carried around dictionaries with my favorite words underlined and marked with tiny scraps of paper. I kyped the plot lines from my favorite video games and translated them into five-page "novels". I wrote comedies, trying to capture the things in life I thought were funny.
There's that part of me that wants to stop because my continuing in the face of everything is just insane. But I can't. I've realized that, for as long as I live, whether I like it or not, I will sit down every evening and almost every free time during the day and write.
Someday, maybe I really will share the things that I see.
Thanks for commenting, you guys. You forced me to think and take a look at my motivations. In doing that, I unburied the real reason I write and why I always seem to go at it with such passion, despite any common sense I may try to inflict upon myself.
I just had an idea for a short story.- Status