How many times a day/week/month/year do you wish you could just give up? I mean, I’m not gonna lie, I’m struggling with writing lately and giving up is looking better and better. I get it, those people who give up, I totally get it. Is it worth all the time you put into to when it feels like in the end you’re just screaming into the void and no one is there to respond? That’s pretty much my publishing experience lately. I write a book, I publish a book, no one wants the book. It’s hard. It weighs on you. It sometimes makes it hard for you to keep writing. But no matter how much I want to give up, I just can’t. The voices in my head would probably draw and quarter me if they had no outlet, so I keep on keeping on. I keep writing, keep planning new books. New characters. Even though no one but my family is reading them. The idea that someday, someone out there that isn’t family might pick up my book is enough to keep me publishing.
So to all those out there who are looking at the hardness, who are looking down the tunnel and the light just isn’t there, don’t give up. Just don’t. It sounds easy but I know it isn’t. Trust me. I know how hard it is to keep going when you want to give in. But I haven’t yet, and I hope that despite how hard it gets, I can still keep going. I can still keep pushing myself to take those steps forward even when all I want is to lay down on the side of the road I’m walking. So just know that you’re not alone. That other people out there have been where you are, are still where you are, and in solidarity will keep going with you.
Also, just to make you smile, here’s a picture of Felix the cat. He likes to get all up on my lap when I’m trying to type.
sherilyn putnam 
I understand wanting to give up. I struggled with it ever since I graduated from college. I didn’t go beyond writing for a class. I worked on the bare minimum. There were things I needed to improve upon, but didn’t heed other writers’ advice. I felt lost. I felt like I had no business writing novels. I felt writing was not my calling.
I struggled with this off and on in my life. I think what snapped me out of it was the encouragement of my wife. She heard so much of my whining of me wanting to write. She flat out told me that if I wanted to write, then write. It’s funny because before, she discouraged me from writing because I wasn’t writing. She thought I was wasting time and money. But then, one day, she changed her tune. It was unexpected.
Unfortunately, the struggle to quit is still there. I mean, I would be lying if I said there isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not writing. I wish that was true. But I believe the struggle is not as intense as it was years ago. There are days where it’s a struggle to write. But it’s those days where I have to step back and re-evaluate why I write and what I want to write about. After some searching, I usually get back to writing.
I hope you overcome your desire to quit. I want to read your work. I want to learn about how you approach your work and why you write what you write. Good luck.
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It must be the darkest hour before the Five-Step Finale.
Step 1: The hero, and the hero team, come up with a plan to “storm the castle” and “free the princess” who is “trapped in the tower.”
Get the tie fighters
Step 2: The plan begins. The wall of the castle is broached. The heroes enter the Bad Guys’ fort. All is going according to plan.
Porkins dies.
Step 3: Finally reaching the tower where the princess is being kept, the hero finds… she’s not there! And not only that, it’s a trap! It looks like the Bad Guy has won.
Look out its Darth!
Step 4: The hero now has to come up with a new plan. And it’s all part and parcel of the overall transformation of the hero and his need to “dig deep down” to find that last ounce of strength (i.e., faith in an unseen power) to win the day.
Bigs and wedge can help Luke the force is strong in this one. Let go your feelings use the force!
Step 5: Thinking on the fly, and discovering his best self, the hero executes the new plan, and wins! Princess freed, friends avenged, Bad Guy sent back to wherever Bad Guys go when they are defeated (Two Bunch Palms?) — our hero has triumphed. Death star is blown up, they have a party.
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love the Star Wars reference.
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