Five Reasons Why You Quit

I’ve done it. I’m sure you have too. You get a great idea and dive right in. Somewhere along the way, you chip away at your enthusiasm until one day you suddenly realize you haven’t pursued that thing in quite a while. You quit.

That’s fine if you started watching season one of Castle or took belly dancing lessons. There comes a time when those things naturally come to an end. But when it comes to quitting your writing dream, it will leave you empty and utterly unhappy.

There are any number of reasons why individuals throw in the towel on their pursuits, but here are ones I have found to be the top five:

Take a Deep Breath

You’re six days into the NaNoWriMo and MBTWriMo writing marathon. You started out great. Thousands of words flew from your fingertips and onto the computer screen. Your writer friends envied your massive word count.

But today, the cursor on the blank screen taunts you. The blink-blink-blink flashes your zero word count to the world. When you finally force words to come out, they resemble your “See spot run” sentences of your first grade reader.

Ahhh… to be a writer.

Okay. Sit back, take a deep breath and relax! It’s all good. Your creative juices come in waves just like the tides in the ocean. Sometimes they come crashing in with the force of a tsunami and words flood your work in progress. Other times you’ll walk a mile just to reach a trickle.

You can’t hammer out word count every hour of the day. It’s unnatural. Unhealthy. It wouldn’t be wise for you to any more than you should eat constantly for all those hours. Your body has to have time to process what you’ve consumed. So it is with your word count.

When words won’t come and the contest pressure is sucking the life out of you, these things will help you get back on the right track:

Dream the Impossible Dream

You just thought of Man From LaMancha, didn’t you? What a beautiful message. Did you know that song was recorded by artists that ran the span of genres. Jim Nabors, Elvis, Andy Williams and Frank Sinatra just to name a few.

Why? Because it is powerful. It speaks to going for it, no matter how the odds may be stacked against you. It instills the courage to face whatever challenge that stands between you and reaching your goal.

We’ve seen a lot of changes in the publishing industry this year. It’s enough to make a writer think they’ll never be a published author. It makes you want to sing, “Gloom, despair and agony on me…”

Your dream of being a writer is too important to remain unlived. You’ll face challenges, market nightmares and critics who would rather write bad reviews about your book than to go through the time and trouble to write their own.

You’ll have moments when you feel you’re attempting the impossible. Here’s the truth. You have the absolute right to and should dream the impossible dream. Besides, it’s just a word: I (a)m Possible.

Lots of people have lived impossible dreams. You can, too. Hard is hard and impossible is not as difficult as the world makes it out to be.