When I was a wee lad in Jersey City, I found school to be pretty easy. I was that kid, beloved by teachers and scorned by his classmates. I totally looked the part, too; I looked like a character out of Bloom County, with glasses the size of the universe and a penchant for button-down dress shirts. I usually made the Honor Roll and was always picked first in Spelling Bees.
Some time in 7th Grade, however, I experienced a kind of early life crisis and simply stopped giving a shit about my grades. I didn’t fail anything, but I stopped putting any effort in, and the bottom fell out. In 8th Grade, one of the supposed ‘perks’ of being a good student was the ability to become a Safety Monitor or something like that—essentially you got a reflective sash to wear and you helped the crossing guards. It was supposedly an honor, and I became one, and then quickly regretted it, for the following reasons:
- You had to wear the ridiculous sash, which invited mockery and
- You had to stand outside with the weird middle-aged crossing guard ladies all the damn time
So, wallowing in this newfound lack of fucks, I decided to quit the Safety Monitors. The idea of quitting something seemed exciting.
My 8th Grade teacher was a terrifying woman, universally feared in the school, and she dragged me into her class when I quit and dressed me down. She told me I’d regret it for the rest of my life (!), that this was a huge mistake, and I should reconsider. I did not reconsider, and as I write this today is the first time I’ve thought about this incident in approximately 35 years, so I think she might have overstated the case.
Quitting felt good.
Failed Novels A-Go-Go
Which brings me, at long last, to writing. I hate to quit on writing projects, especially when they get to a fairly mature point (a few thousand words, give or take). If I’ve got a substantial amount of material, the idea of just giving up on it horrifies me. After all, it could be a mediocre novel or story! All I have to do is stick with it!
And I usually do, and I usually do finish it, and it turns out better than expected often enough for me to justify my obsessive-compulsive desire to finish everything.
But sometimes, quitting feels good.
Knowing when quitting on a manuscript is the right thing to do isn’t easy. For some, of course, it is; they get the first whiff of Fail and they drop the story like a hot potato. I get that, but it can also lead to never actually finishing anything, because frankly I’ve never written a novel or story that didn’t seem on the verge of failure at least once in the process.
So how do you know when it’s right to just give up, and when you should put any and all effort into salvaging what you’ve written? The only metric I’ve come up with is Mental Real Estate (MRE).
MRE is, simply, the amount of time I spend thinking about a writing project. Not working on it, but thinking about it while I’m involved in other things. A story that’s alive and writhing, demanding to be written will occupy my thought constantly—while doing the dishes, taking a walk, or brushing my teeth, I’m thinking about that story. Even when it’s not working, I’m thinking about it.
If I realize I only think about a problematic story when I’m sitting in front of the keyboard actively trying to work on it, that’s when I know it’s a done deal and I should walk away. If the story vanishes from my mind the moment I turn away, it’s already doomed.
Of course, as I get older, the list of things that vanish from my thoughts when I’m not looking right at them grows longer and longer. I apply a similar metric to deciding when it’s time to enter a care facility: The day I forget about whiskey when I’m not actively drinking it is the day to check into the Long Sunset Home for The Aged and give up. Until then—sláinte.