What to Do If You Feel Like Quitting Writing

We All Have Bad Times as a Writer

Writing can be a very lonely profession. It is not something that everyone can do. When you first start, low payments are often all you can scrape up because you are unknown. Some writers get lucky and make a lot right away, but this is not the norm.

Sometimes we can get into a rut. I am in that right now. My last client doesn’t need any work for a while, so that means that I am out of work. I have to try and find new clients and sometimes that isn't easy. I have found it more difficult due to COVID-19 to find new writing gigs. I did have one that looked promising, but the client was not interested in my writing, which made me feel quite frustrated because I was more than willing to do the work.

This is what it’s like being a writer. Sometimes you have times where you can be on top of the world and other times. You don’t feel very good at all. I could sit here and feel sorry for myself, but I’m going to make some concrete changes to improve my writing. I plan to make every day one where I work to the best of my ability to make my writing position better.

When You Want to Quit

There have been days when I wanted to quit as a writer.

It has been difficult when there is not much money coming in, and jobs seem few and far between no matter how hard you work toward Finding new writing gigs. In many cases, places already have quite a few writers, and they don’t need anymore.

Sites such as UpWork, where I found quite a few writing gigs, don’t pay all that much. Many clients expect a ton of work for very little pay, which is not the best choice for you as a writer. I have also written on sites such as Fiverr, which is horrific and not recommended for any writer looking for a serious career.

It Gets Better

Writing is a career where there are many ups and downs. Nothing in writing is a straight line. If it were, we would all be rich. We have to be able to take out the bad and the good days as a writer. This is a profession that requires you to have a strong stomach. I know that writing is what I want to do, so I have no intention of quitting, although there are days I want to throw in the towel and forget it. A person could go out and find a different job than a writer. I would probably make a whole hell of a lot more money.

My main problem is that writing is who I am. I don’t wish to do anything else, so I have to make the most of it and improve my position as a writer. I don’t intend to quit. I intend to put more effort into making my writing career the best it can be.

Change Gears

I think it’s important sometimes to change gears with your writing.

Perhaps you can write something that you’ve never done before. For example, if you’ve never written a fiction book, now is the time to write one. This seems daunting, but you never know where this book can lead you. As writers, we often have to write quite a few books before we gain any traction. This is all part of learning how to write.

Maybe you’re doing a lot of article writing. Perhaps you could switch gears and try topics or subjects picture or not used to writing. This would force you to do any research to find out more about the topics you want to cover.

My Action Plan

I have created an action plan, and it all starts with writing more here on Medium. This is a free platform, and it won’t cost me anything besides the token $5 I need to spend for my subscription, which is nothing. I have some money set aside, so I don’t have to worry as much as other people might about my financial stability for the next couple of months. I have a time where I can focus completely on my writing.

Step One:

Write three Medium Articles each day — two for publications and one for my own.

The first step is to write three Medium articles every workday. I always take the weekends off because you needed to take a break from writing, or you will burn out. I plan to create two articles for Publications already here on Medium and one for my own publication, which I just started.

Step Two:

Write an article for my blog.

I started this last year, but I didn’t do anything with my blog. I probably would have been in a better position had written articles for it during the entire year. I got busy with other projects, and I forgot to do any work on it, which was probably not the best thing. I plan to change this in the coming months as I add content to it. I will write one article for my blog every day, which should give me a nice chunk of content on it in the future.

Step Three

Finish my book.

I have a book I was working on, but I put on the back burner. I plan to finish this book and get it published as soon as I can. Whenever we start projects, we must finish them. By not finishing this book, I am only sabotaging my own progress as a writer. Now is the time to finish this book and get it out there. You never know what can happen when you do publish a book.

Don’t Quit

I wanted to quit writing quite a few times in my life. I know that this is a long and extended process. If you feel like quitting, analyze what you were doing now and create a plan to focus exclusively on your writing. We can only get better in our craft if we spend as much time doing actual writing and not worrying about where we are now. We cannot move forward unless we start to write.

You may want to give up, but you should keep going. We’re going to have issues with her writing from time to time. It’s what we do during those downtimes, which will determine how we move our writing into the future.

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