Read Before Quitting

How to decide whether to abandon or double down

Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash

DEADLOCK

There you are, distraught and teary-eyed, with QWERTY bruises on your face from pounding it on the keyboard in frustration.

You’re stuck on a creative project.

Maybe you’ve been in deadlock for a week, maybe a month, maybe a year. You don’t want to be a quitter, but you can’t see your way through. How do you proceed?

TAILS FOR VANILLA

My sixth grade frenemy told me the best way to choose between two options was to flip a coin: heads for chocolate, tails for vanilla. Once the coin had chosen, he explained, you would feel either relief or disappointment—and this feeling would tell you which flavor you really wanted. I like this method, because unlike writing, it’s simple. I still use it.

When you’re at a creative impasse, you have two choices: persist or quit. But since you’ve been working on this project for some extended period of time, you already know what it’s like to persist. That leaves only one side of the coin.

It’s time to quit.

HOW TO QUIT

Drag that file to the archive. Save it to a floppy and put it in your fire safe. Print it out and stuff it in a drawer. Leave it to gather dust for one full week. Let it decompose until it starts to reek. When that week ends, the project is dead as a coffin nail, and it’s time for a post-mortem. Grab a notebook, get out of the house, and ask yourself two questions:

What are the costs of abandoning the work?

What are the costs of persisting?

Photo by Piret Ilver on Unsplash

THE PRICE OF GIVING UP

Momentum loss. Starting a new project takes more energy than continuing a work in progress. And anyway, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to dive immediately into new work; mourning a lost project takes emotional energy you might otherwise spend on writing. You’ve got to price that in.

Confidence loss. When we fail to finish, we’re forced to grapple with uncomfortable questions: Am I any good? Will I ever write another story? The answers are almost certainly yes—but the injury to your confidence may cost you more time and pain than persisting.

Professional impact. If you’re under contract, quitting may have heavy financial or professional consequences—but then again, it may open more doors than it closes. You’ll want to talk to colleagues, critique partners, and your agent about the professional costs.

Identity issues. This is the biggest one. If I quit, am I still a successful writer? Am I still a writer at all? Probably, you are. Quitting a project only revokes your title if you never start another one. On the other hand—maybe you’re not a writer. Maybe you've outgrown that dream. Maybe this difficult project was obscuring your true calling, and its death has liberated you to pursue it. Either way, loss of identity is a cost you must consider.

THE COST OF PERSISTING

Emotional expense. How will it feel to get back behind the keyboard? Persisting will be stressful no matter what—does that make you feel brave and gritty? Or helpless and hopeless?

Opportunity cost. What other projects will you be unable to pursue if you stick to this one? How do you feel about that?*

*Caveat: Beware of ShinyNewThingSyndrome™. The call of a new project is exciting and seductive—but the reality is rarely as easy or satisfying as the fantasy. Keep that in mind when you’re assessing opportunity cost.

Temporal cost: Based on how it’s gone so far, do you need to reevaluate the timeline for this project? If your goal was a first draft in ninety days, and you’re only halfway through after six months, are you looking at spending another six months finishing this? If so, what agreements or schedules must you alter to accommodate this new timeline?*

*Caveat: Beware the Sunk Cost Fallacy: If I quit now, I’ll be throwing away [weeks / months / years] of work! This is a deadly pitfall based on faulty assumptions:

• The time I spent on this project is only good for this project. Not true. This work has made you better at your craft, regardless of whether it ever sees an audience.

• Pursuing this idea was a mistake because it will never work. False. Creativity requires exploration; if you never follow a false trail, you’re only retracing your steps. You can't explore without getting lost.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

GUTS AND VALUES

Ask yourself how this project aligns with your creative values. Does the work move you closer to what matters most, or is it a distraction from your true calling? Sometimes we resist what's most important, either by indulging in an escape project, or by abandoning a crucial one. Quitting for a week will bring this into sharp relief.

Listen to your gut. Now that you’ve quit, do you feel grief or relief? If the grief of having buried the project overwhelms you, it’s time to exhume and resurrect it. But if you feel lighter, freer, or more creative standing over its grave, leave it in the ground and get busy doing the next thing.

IN THE END

Writer’s block is no joke. But sometimes we get so wrapped up in trying to figure out how to proceed that we never stop to consider whether we should. If you feel your project is bleeding out, put it out of its misery on your terms.

Then see if you regret it.