Why Most Writers Quit (and How to Keep Going)
The worst thing about my job is sending a writer their feedback, and then watching them deflate.
No matter how much I believe in the author, or praise their novel’s strengths, some people find it hard.
And I get it. I’m one of those people.
As a developmental editor, my job is to crawl inside of a story and find its shine—the reason why the author cared enough to bring it into this world. But I’m also often the first person (beyond the writer’s friends and family) to read their book, and that means I’m the first reality check a lot of stories get.
I’m fiercely protective of the novels I edit, and I wouldn’t take on a book if I wasn’t prepared to fight for it. But I’m not just here to cheerlead. Writers pay me to make their book stronger, and give it the best possible chance of success.
Quite often, that means making big changes, and there’s no nice way to deliver that news.
Especially when I know exactly how it feels to be on the receiving end.
The Cost of Carrying the Ring
I’ve always struggled with rejection.
It’s the one thing that’s wrecked my writing career more than anything else.
I stopped submitting short stories a few years ago because I couldn’t stand it anymore. The drop in my stomach every time an email landed in my inbox.
But the lessons we need to learn have a funny way of haunting us, and that’s definitely been my experience. That’s how I found myself struggling with the same issues, over and over again.
It all started when I accepted a commission to write an interactive novel. Sounds fun, right? Only every time I finished a chapter, I’d send it off to my editor, and a few days later I’d get a quick “thanks” attached to a massive list of revisions I needed to make. And those emails kicked the stuffing out of me every time.
The problem is, stories aren’t just something we do—they’re a vital piece of our being.
We pour hundreds of hours into them, fill them with our most desperate dreams and fears, and when we’re told they aren’t good enough it feels like being told we aren’t good enough.
In a way, it’s a beautiful thing. A sign that we’re doing things right. It only hurts because we care. But when we suddenly realise that we have to go back and do it all over again, the mountain ahead feels impassible.
Whispers in the dark
We get this idea that “real writers” don’t have these problems. If we were meant to write, then we wouldn’t have made such a mess of things in the first place.
Those thoughts turn every setback into evidence we don’t belong here.
That we don’t have what it takes.
Writing is unusual in that way. We wouldn’t expect to get a job in a Michelin-starred kitchen without learning how to cook, or become a carpenter without learning the basics of woodwork. But because we’re taught how to write words and build sentences at a young age, it feels like we should be able to write stories.
The Romantic idea of the solitary genius doesn’t help.
We look back at the writers of the past, and assume they never failed like this. Society peddles the idea that great stories come fully-formed out of nowhere—ignoring the fact that almost all great writers spent years learning their craft, quietly failing, despairing, and trying again.
But today more than ever before, all forms of publishing will quietly select the people who can tolerate the repeated psychic injury of rejection and find a way to persist.
I still struggle with that every day.
Every time one of my Substack posts performs badly, every time I get another email from my editor with a list of changes and revisions, it hurts.
After a year of working on this interactive novel, it had almost destroyed me. Every fresh set of revisions was hell. I’d procrastinate, spiral into depression, and want to give up so badly. I spent a lot of time feeling very sorry for myself.
But I couldn’t give up. I was locked into a contract, and that was both a curse and a blessing. It meant I’d have to slog through those revisions sooner or later. And, since interactive novels take a huge amount of time, I’d have to do that over and over again.
In the end, that’s how a solution appeared.
The Road Goes Ever On
After the first year of spiralling at every fresh batch of feedback, something shifted.
I’m still not sure how it happened. But slowly, in the darkest part of my brain, I noticed something: I’d been through this before, and although it hurt like hell, it hadn’t killed me.
This wasn’t the first time I’d faced a long list of revisions and felt like I couldn’t do it. And every time in the past, I’d found a way through. More than that, I’d ended up with a story I was proud of.
It’s still something I struggle with. I suspect many of you still struggle with it, too. The crushing feelings of “I can’t do this” haven’t gone anywhere, and they haven’t even gotten any easier. But I have got better at seeing those feelings. Saying “oh, it’s you again,” and getting on with things anyway.
These days, I procrastinate less, and don’t stay trapped in that self-destructive spiral for so long.
And that’s a skill I badly need to develop, especially if I want to put my own stories out there. Because the writing world is tough, and navigating the soul-crushing pain of rejection is perhaps the most important skill any of us can learn.
Even successful writers aren’t immune. I know quite a few writers who’ve “made it,” and many of them still wrestle with the same problems. Whether it’s poor sales, endless rounds of revisions, or getting dropped by their agent, even when a writer is doing well, they have to navigate through pain.
Writing is just like that: we voluntarily expose our souls to judgment, time and time again, and with very little control over the outcome.
Over the course of our writing career, we will accumulate many such rejections.
And almost two decades in the writing world have taught me something important—most writers don’t fail because they’re “not good enough.” They give up because the pain of repeated failure becomes too high.
The only way to keep going is to find some way to metabolise that. Work through the pain, stumble out the other side, and keep moving.
Because you don’t become a writer by avoiding rejection. You only become one by surviving it repeatedly, without annihilating yourself in the process.
That means learning how to keep going, even when we doubt.
What to Do When All Other Lights Go Out
If you’re struggling with this, know that persistence is a muscle. The more you practice it, the stronger it gets.
Writing is hard—it’s hard in the most brutal, unfair, and uncaring ways—but somehow this impossible, soul-crushing thing is still worth it. Sometimes, there’s nothing in the world that matters more.
If you feel that way too, here are four steps you can take:
Make space for the overwhelm, pain, and despair. Nothing good comes from pushing it away. So whine about it! Talk to other writers. Fill up a hundred pages of self-pity in your journal. You’re allowed to feel bad, and you’re allowed to find it hard. And if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, they can get straight in the bin.
Remind yourself, gently, that you’ve been through hard things before. It didn’t destroy you, and this won’t either. You can get through this, because you’re stronger than you think.
Find your Light of Eärendil. This is your light that shines when all others go out—your “why” that makes it all worth it. It could be anything: a folder of compliments on your writing, or a person who loves and believes in you. For me, it’s the stories themselves. I care more about them than my own pride. Reminding myself of that helps.
Hold onto it. It’s your everything. Your reason to keep going. Keep it close when doing the hard, painful work of persisting through the darkness. Then take a deep breath and, when you’re ready, get back to the reason you started.
🌋 No One Writes Through Mordor Alone
If you crave a community of writers to walk with you through dark places, please consider joining The Writers’ Room.
Over the past few months, we’ve been building a dedicated group of speculative fiction writers who understand how hard the work can be, and choose to keep going anyway. It’s come to feel like home, and if you want to be surrounded by friends when your light starts to flicker, we’d love to have you with us.
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Your membership also gives you access to:
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Submissions for our next workshop open on 1st March, and if you’re looking for companionship on the long road of writing, just click the button below.
I just got like five criticisms on a four paragraph (nonfiction) section I wrote for a paper I'm editing... And my Spirit guide said to me, "It's easy to point out a few things that are wrong, but you have done the hard work of writing the section to begin with. You should be proud!"
I like to remind myself that just because somebody found a few flaws doesn't mean that what I wrote wasn't good. Thanks for helping us all have a better mindset about getting better...
There are people who think that they could walk into a Michelin-star kitchen... I'm related to some.
U.S. culture has always idolized the person with a "natural gift" over the person who spent time and money to learn a skill. It's part of our elevation of the "common man." It results in the belief that if you don't do it perfectly the first time, it means you don't have the necessary talent. If you have to practice, you'll never be anything more than ordinary. Criticism is personal.