The Art of Quitting

I must admit, I’ve hit a writer’s rut over these last few weeks. As I publicly admitted to some colleagues on a writer’s forum, my writing lately seems to be in grayscale. No life, no color, just varying shades of gray.

I have been bored with writing nonfiction. Everything seems to sound the same – bad. Like a musical instrument badly out of tune.

So I decided to shake things up a bit. I entered the Writer’s Weekly 24 Hour Short Story Contest.

I haven’t written fiction since I was in high school. Considering there are little people running around who call me Grandma (actually, it sounds more like “Ma Ma” and when I correct her, she says “No.”) but that should give you a rough idea how long its been since I attempted to write fiction.

Writing fiction takes an entirely different set of skills than nonfiction. Writing nonfiction centers around reality – things that have already happened, things that are known to the writer, real stories, instructions for completing a task, historical documentation. The context of the story is already decided. A nonfiction writer merely needs to recreate the story in words.

Fiction, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal. The events, people, and storyline exist only in the mind of the writer. The writer’s job is to bring those people, places, and things to life – to show the reader in words what the writer sees in their mind.

It’s not an easy thing to do. Readers have to be able to envision your world, your characters. A good story engages the reader emotionally.

Fiction, in this little writer’s humble opinion, is far more difficult to master than nonfiction. This is why I recommend that new writer wannabes start with nonfiction.

But we’re getting off track here. Back to my entry in the writing contest.

The topic was announced Saturday. The “topic” would be better described as a writing prompt. The word count? 900 words max – that’s about two pages of typed text.

Believe it or not, longer stories are easier to write than short ones. I would have had a much easier time with my storyline had the word count been 1500 words.

But, onward I went with my attempt at writing what really amounts to a flash fiction piece. At 847 words, I realized I would need at least another 100-150 words to finish. Even then, the ending was going to fall flat. Time to do some editing and cutting out everything that doesn’t further the story.

Snip. Delete. Reword. Nip. Tuck. Delete again. Rewrite.

I got it down to 761 words. Cool. I should have enough to finish. Nope. Ending still forced to fall flat because I’m out of words. Hmm…this is getting more challenging than I thought.

I hope online to the Writer’s Weekly site, looking for ideas, clues, inspiration, something. As I’m scrolling through the rules, rereading the topic, and scanning the hints/tips recommended, my heart drops. There in the guidelines, towards the end of the page, is a list of some of the recurring themes/storylines that the judges say come up every time they host this contest. They’re bored with them.

And don’t you know…my storyline was one of the common, “we get storyline xyz every quarter.”

Ugh. Darn it. And it was such a cute story too, if I could have gotten my word count down.

Unfortunately, it’s only a 24 hour contest. Entrants have 24 hours from the time the topic is announced to submit their piece. I look at the clock…just three and a half hours left to go. There’s no time left to craft a different storyline, fit it into 900 words, and make sure the ending is good.

Not happening.

But I can’t quit now! That would be the easy, chicken shit thing to do, right? What’s the point of entering a contest if you don’t finish it? I HAVE to finish.

What can I say, I’m competitive. The idea of dropping out of a competition is disdainful. I’d rather be publicly flogged for poor writing than be thought of as a quitter.

Until I realized, I wasn’t quitting. I entered the contest as a way of bumping myself out of my nonfiction writing duldrums. As I sat here, fretting over my short story submission, the pile of client work I had waiting for me started to look much less boring. In fact, I equated it to my colleagues as beginning to sound more like a comfortable recliner at the end of a long, hard day.

That’s when I realized that MY GOALS and MY REASONS for entering the contest had been met. I wasn’t dreading my writing work any more. I had all sorts of ideas for a client project I had been putting off. While I couldn’t think of a single drip of an idea for reworking my flash fiction piece, my mind was racing with ideas for this client project.

Isn’t that exactly what I was hoping for with this contest? To breathe a little life back into my writing? Give me back a little color and passion for the work I do on a daily basis?

With that, I took a more realistic look at the story I had started. It is a good story, even if it is a common one. If I spent more time on it and expanded the word count, I could make it a decent short story. Not a flash fiction piece, for sure. But a decent short story. In all honesty, it’s just not the right piece to submit for this particular contest.

So, while I admit defeat in terms of submitting my story to the contest, I met my underlying goal. While that little voice in my head still whispers “Quitter. Whimp. Chicken shit,” I think I can shut her up with a good scotch. After all, the professional freelancer in me is jumping up and down, yelling “Yeah! We did it! No more boring grayscale mentality! Woo-hoo. I knew we could do it.” 

There is an art to quitting – to knowing when you’ve pushed beyond your limits. There is dignity in admitting defeat before your opponent has the chance to slaughter you publicly and embarassingly. It’s okay to say “I’ve met my match.”

So, while I have chosen not to submit my piece because I KNOW it’s not good enough (as opposed to nervously thinking maybe it isn’t) I can do so with a clear conscience.

I’d also like to say thank you to Angela Hoy, host of the contest and the brains behind much of the goings-on over at Writer’s Weekly. Participating in this contest was exactly what I needed to knock me out of my rut and get me going again. (Even if I did chicken out of submitting my story.) Thanks Angela!

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