Goodbye, Writing

After twenty years, many abandoned novels, never winning a Vocal contest, and countless short stories that were never really read by anyone and were liked by even fewer people, I think it’s time to quit writing.

When one of my short stories got runner-up in a contest, I posted on one of the Vocal Facebook groups asking what was wrong with it, what I could do better. No one read it then, either. All they said was, “Just write for yourself. If you write to win a contest, you’ll never improve.” That was when I started to realize, after twenty years of trying to perfect my craft, that maybe I don’t want to do this anymore.

Because I don’t write for myself, just like I don’t take photos to not show anyone. My dream was always to be a traditionally-published author, but I’m just not good enough for that to be a possibility, and I don’t have the desire to spend several thousands of dollars of my hard-earned savings on an editor or cover artist for a project that will never see a return-on-investment. If I were having fun writing, that would be a different story. But I’m not having fun, and I haven’t been for a while.

I’m 30,000 words into my current novel, and I just don’t like it. The one before that was 100,000 words, and I don’t like it either. But the bigger problem is that I don’t believe in them. I truly don’t think I have any talent for writing, and I just wish someone would have told me that years ago. I could try to get an agent, for the one that’s “finished.” And then there would be the rejection, and the heartbreak, and I’d probably never even get published anyway. At work, I like to tell my customers when they ask for a discount on a car, “The worst they can do is say no.” Well, I don’t want to be told no. I’ve been told no so many times in my life. To me, it’s just not worth the trouble.

So if I’m not making any money from writing, I should do it for the enjoyment. Except I also don’t enjoy it. What does that leave? Nothing. I didn’t even make back my money on my Vocal membership.

The past couple of years have been spent realizing I’m mediocre at best in every way. I’m not that smart, I’m maybe average at writing, and I’m not even good-looking enough to make up for it. At least someone was honest about THAT.

I don’t really even expect anyone to read this, and I’m sure anyone who does will comment the tired, “This isn’t an airport. You don’t need to announce your departure.” Great. You don’t need to waste your energy commenting on something you “don’t care” about. I’m not sure why I’m writing this at all. Closure, maybe? Writing was a huge part of my life for a long time. Not anymore. I thought I’d finally found the magic formula when I wrote 50,000 words of that first heap of garbage, but garbage is all it ever was. I don’t have anything of importance to say.

So this is goodbye to Vocal, to writing as a whole. As a hobby, it was never fun. As a dream, it was never achievable. I don’t often fall prey to the sunk-cost fallacy; I’m fine with cutting my losses. It sucks to understand, finally, that you’re not very good at something your parents said you were good at, but at least I don’t have to waste any more of my time.