When to Give Up

From here, in the comments:

And I mean it’s not like I’d never teased myself with the idea of giving up, or of at least pretending until I realized that’s not what I wanted. But there’s a difference between teasing yourself and being in that very dark place where you feel like you don’t have it in you anymore. When you don’t even tell anyone, especially your writer friends, that you’re giving up, because they might see it as some cry for help and you just want your dreams to die quietly under the bed like an old cat with nobody watching.

I have so been there. And you know what I do?

I wallow in it. I have my big ol’ pity party. I cry. I wish I’d gone to insurance school or training or whatever it was that guy told my dad I’d be good at, all those years ago. I eat chocolate. And go cry myself to sleep.

The next day I get back to f*cking work. Because I can’t stop writing, so what’s the point in trying?

My grandmother lived for many years near the casino on the reservation. Sometimes she would take a roll of nickels down to “donate to the Indians.” (When eighty years old you reach, look as good, you will not!) The metaphor falters a bit, because I am giving my writing more than a roll of nickels, but the basis is sound. She was happy to win, but mostly she just wanted to play.

That’s why the publishing lottery will never knock me down for long. I’ll do my best, I’ll be persistent, I’ll learn from the best–but in the end, I just wanna play.

I write for me. Anyone else enjoying my stories is just icing on the yummy yummy cake.