Just Quit

                   “A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.”

I’m not sure who originated that quote but my mother wore it out. Whether it was sports, school, or even chores, Mom threw it down whenever I wanted to give up. And so I would keep on trying, and more often than not, I’d achieve my goal. That sentiment, those words, are in the core of my character; it’s probably infused into my DNA.

So quitting—unless it’s like gobbling up a party-size bag of chips—is not an option for me. And yet, I recently tried quitting and I feel pretty darn good.

But okay, I didn’t just up and quit. Didn’t you just read what I wrote about that quote? It was a process, y’all. And the process went something like this:

1. (September) This manuscript needs further revision but I shall defer any work until my trusted beta readers give feedback.

2. (October/November) Trusted beta readers are busy writers. Best not to bother them because mostly, a (nice, long) break would be a good thing.

3. (Mid-November) Eventually notes from beta readers arrive. But it was almost Thanksgiving. Who can work when there’s a holiday to plan?

4. (December) See above excuse. (Note: The holiday season is always a perfectly good excuse to defer revising—or any work.)

5. (January) No one works in January. One must get one’s priorities for the whole year in order. It’s a time for thinking not doing the work of revising.

January is such a quiet month, at least where I live. It’s cold but not so cold that it’s a crisis situation; just cold enough that I don’t go out much. So I had plenty of time for pondering but I also had plenty of quiet to listen. And between listening to my heart and thinking about the Signs of the past few months (and the above list is just the tip of the Signs Iceberg), my hands started to sweat. My heart pounded out a rhumba. By the third week of January, I heard the message and it was plenty scary:

IT WAS TIME TO QUIT.

I knew that my heart was not in the writing anymore; I couldn’t even muster enough spirit for a relatively simple revision. And so I made the decision to quit working on that manuscript. Or any manuscript. I would keep up with my other writing responsibilities and then I would do…well, something. I wasn’t sure what.

And within a week, the most amazing thing happened: An idea that had rumbled round my brain off and on for years came back to me. Combined with what I needed to write about now, I had a project for a novel. And I was itching to write!

It’s funny. I had to quit on my old dreams and goals to make room for the new dreams and goals that I didn’t even know were waiting patiently for me. Now my heart’s pounding out a rhumba again but in a good way. So I’m sorry, Mom, but sometimes a quitter does win.

What about you? Is there something in your writing that you keep putting off? Can you find a hundred excuses not to do the writing you think you want to do? Do you feel as if you’re banging your head against a closed writing door? It can be scary to quit, I know. But sometimes we have to quit to find the freedom to move forward. And guess what? I have a quote for that, too:

                        “When one door closes, another door opens…”
                                                            ~ Alexander Graham Bell

~Cathy C. Hall