Shirley,

I learned this lesson at a high school track meet. At my high school to earn a varsity letter in track you had to compete in a certain number of meets and earn a certain number of points. (You get points by finishing in the top 3 in your event.) For a slow, unspringy freshman like me, this meant attempting pretty much any event the coach asked me to enter and hoping somehow I'd scrape up a few third place efforts.

One day I was running the 2 mile. I was dying, but there were only 4 girls in the race so if I could manage to beat 1 of them, I'd get a 3rd place finish and the points that went along with it. The first two girls were so far ahead I probably got lapped by them, but the last girl and I were very closely matched (i.e. neither of us had any business in the 2-mile race). I was running along, keeping a very short lead on the girl, consoling myself with thoughts of 3rd place when she sped up and passed me. It broke my heart. I kept up for about half a lap but couldn't manage to get back in front and finally I dropped out with about 2 laps to go.

As soon as the girl heard me quit she stopped running. She walked the rest of the race--it might have been the slowest 2-mile run ever recorded--but she got the third place points. I never forgot that lesson. She wanted to quit almost as badly as I did and if I'd been just a little bolder I could have accomplished my goal that day. I let my mind lose a race my legs were (nominally) capable of winning.

I did earn a varsity letter that season, mostly because very few people in the district were dumb enough to run the 4 x 400 hurdles, but that one 2-mile race really sticks out in my mind as a failure. Not the losing part, but the quitting part.

for an inspiring, motivational topic. Course I visualized all the gore along with it :)
I was on the verge of giving up writing a synop for a story I finished and told myself since I did the process backwards (story before synop)and was having a hard time with it, that I should just move on to my next idea and write the synop and just view the first story as practice and put it away.
After reading your post however, I've decided to go down fighting! and the only blood that will be shed will probably come from a papercut :)

I love the Woody Allen quote, "90% of success is showing up." But maybe we need to change it just a tad to "90% of success is showing up and then hanging on and not ever, ever letting go..."

I was reading somewhere about the "10,000 hour rule." (Was it Malcolm Gladwell?) Here's the rule: if you do anything for 10,000 hours, you'll get really good at it. It's not talent, but pure tenacity that separate the winners from the losers.

With that said, I better get back to writing. I think I"m up to hour 4,593 :-)

I admire the spirit of it, that's for sure. I think as writers, we probably all get knocked down and pick ourselves back up over and over -- we have to, or we wouldn't be here, right? What's the sports thing, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take?

But that feeling of being knocked down, and then not wanting to get back up -- we all know that one. Like you Shirley, I have (very seriously) quit writing a few times in the last few years, but then there's just something that makes me go back and try again. Sometimes it's the stories of the writers I know who almost quit, and then sold. Or the writers who never quit, like Susan Gable and others. Sometimes it's the need to make an income, or the expectations of readers, or the faith my husband and family, my agent, etc has in me. As long as I know there's one more thing I can do, one more punch I can throw, I can't let myself quit.

I think it's also fair to say quitting is different than making a change -- making a change can seem like quitting, when it's really making a positive step forward, but we know because it feels right. In that case, quitting is moving on, but we have to know the difference.

The one time I had a friend tell me, in a deep, dark writing moment, that maybe I should quit writing, since it wasn't making me happy, I kind of knew she wasn't a friend at all, you know? I remember thinking "who would tell someone that? to quit?" It was a weird kind of backwards gift -- I lost a friend, but I knew I wasn't down and out, and didn't want to be told I was. ;)

Sam

Don't have a lot to add here, except, Duuuude. That made me feel like 8 shades of inspired. Thanks so much!!

Shirley,

What a great fight story, Shirley!

A few years ago I wrote an original nonfiction piece that was required for the first round in trying for a contributing writer spot with a national publication. It had to be submitted through e-mail and I was confused on the date. An hour before the deadline, poised to hit send, I realized I hadn't fully completed the requirements. What's the use, I thought?

For some reason, I opted to send the part I'd worked really hard on and be honest about misreading the directions. I was never so shocked when I got an e-mail saying an editor liked my piece and I had made it to round two. I also made it to round three, ended up becoming a contributor, and was contracted for 18 months before the economy took its toll and it closed.

I often think about how close I came to hitting delete instead of send. And what a difference that tiny choice made.