One of the most ubiquitous pieces of advice in the publishing world is to not give up. It’s everywhere. There are a few versions of it. There’s the ‘I got rejected 3073 times, but the 3074th is the one that got me there! Don’t give up.’ There’s the more generic ‘There is no finish line. It’s not over unless you give up.’ There’s the tone deaf ‘I tried super hard, and finally I got published when I was 31! You’re never too old, so don’t give up!’ (Note: as someone who was 49 when his first book was published, I hate that one.)

And all of this advice, even the tone deaf one, is well meaning. It’s meant to be encouraging. And maybe there are people who read it and it’s what they need to hear.

But it’s also wrong. Which…that’s fine. There’s no shortage of incorrect generic advice in the writing world, and on the surface, there’s nothing more wrong about this one than the stupid rule about not using adverbs.

Except there is. Because ‘don’t use adverbs’ never messed up somebody’s mental health. All that does is make you believe that you’re not writing correctly. (Yes, I used an adverb there on purpose.)

Don’t give up is good advice for some people. But like all writing advice, it may not be what you need to hear. I’m sure someone is going to read this and take it as me being negative. But I’m not. What I’m saying is that you should do what you need to do for you, even if it goes against the general advice.

When someone says ‘don’t give up’ they are, to some people, saying that when you do give up, that the only reason you’re not succeeding is because of you. You clearly didn’t try hard enough. And that’s shitty. It’s also wrong.

They don’t mean it that way. But as someone who is struggling with writing and the business of writing and probably other areas in life, it’s not about what the person meant.

Let’s be clear. You are not the sole arbiter of your own writing fate. This is not debatable. Yes, working harder and improving your craft can increase your odds of success. But the hard truth is, there are a lot more people writing books than there are spaces in the traditional publishing world for books. And guess what? The best books aren’t always the ones that get in, so even if you do everything right, it might not work out. (And yes, there are some systematic issues with why that’s true, but that’s another post for another day.) And even if you crack that nd get published, there are a lot of really good books that just never find an audience. We can’t control who reads what.

So let me get this out there. Take it from your Uncle Mike. It’s absolutely okay to give up if you want to. If you need to.

Okay. So that sounds super negative, right? Not at all encouraging. That’s not my intention, so let me explain. I’m not saying that you should give up. I’m saying it’s okay if you do. It’s absolutely okay for you to prioritize other things in your life. It’s absolutely okay for you to protect your own mental health if this industry is causing you problems in that regard. It’s absolutely okay for you to live your life any way you want (and hopefully in a way that makes you happy.)

If you’re miserable being a writer, it’s okay to quit. It’s not like you’re making a living wage at it. (Okay…maybe a couple of you are, and if that’s the case, it’s a totally different decision. But you’re in the vast minority, and this isn’t for you.)

Let’s spin one of the takes around. ‘It’s never too late.’ Right. It’s never too late. So it’s fine to quit and come back to it later if the desire strikes you. I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was 19. I didn’t do anything about it. I took a couple classes, wrote a little bit for my college magazine, but that’s it. And then I went off and didn’t come back. I had a career and a family and a bunch of wars and any number of other things to do, and so I didn’t write. I picked it back up in my forties.

Is that a normal path? Who knows. What’s normal? I started writing because I loved to write. It was my path.

I quit once. I’ve talked about this before, but I’m putting it here for people who don’t read my blog regularly. I’d written my first novel–a fantasy derivative of Elizabeth Moon’s work. I learned, from critique, that I wasn’t nearly as good a writer as I thought I was, and after multiple revisions, it still wasn’t very good. There was just too much wrong with it, and while after some study and coaching I could see what it needed, I was just sick of it. I didn’t want to revise it again just to enter the querying process, which, at its best, is a horrible slog.

So I quit writing. It wasn’t working for me–I wasn’t going to get that book published, or, even if I was, I wasn’t willing to do the work required. And I was just not having fun. So it wasn’t a job…it wasn’t going to pay…and it wasn’t fun, so if it was a hobby, it was a crappy one. You don’t hear anybody heading out to the golf course saying ‘man, I hate golf. I wish I wasn’t doing this.’ (Or, maybe you do…but if so, that’s really weird.)

I need to be clear about this: when I quit, I fully intended to quit forever. This wasn’t a thing where I was like, oh, I’ll take a little break and come back refreshed (It would have been fine if that was the case. Breaks are good too. But in that moment, I was completely done.)

Until I wasn’t.

When I stopped writing, I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. In those days, I was living alone five nights a week and commuting home to my wife only on weekends. So that writing time became Netflix time and reading time. I read a bunch of books.

And 45 days later I wanted to write again. It happened naturally. I was reading GONE GIRL and all of a sudden it just hit me — this idea I had for a book, it needed to be in first person. And I was excited about it. I wanted to write. I sat down immediately and wrote the first two chapters of what would become PLANETSIDE. Most of the first chapter no longer exists, but that’s irrelevant. The voice was there from the start, and in my mind, the voice is the book.

And I had fun. I liked it. I wasn’t miserable, and I wasn’t thinking about whether anyone would ever buy it or anything else other than writing this thing that made me happy to write. I honestly don’t know when in the process it shifted over to that, to the business of writing. At some point, certainly. I do know that I was stuck in the middle of it until I woke up on New Year’s morning, 2015, with the big idea that made the second half of the book. That big twist? I started writing without knowing I was going to do that. And the morning I woke up with it was just one of those amazing days that you sometimes get as a writer. That moment of high that makes some of the other days that aren’t so great worth it.

But my point here is this. I quit, and I came back. It wasn’t on any set timeline, and I didn’t have any agenda. There was nothing magic about 45 days. Here’s what it is: I’m a writer, and I love writing. I’d lost that. It came back.

I look around and see people putting so much pressure on themselves. They’re querying a project and they’re already working on the next thing. And if that’s you, and you are happy doing that, keep doing it! But if you’re not?

This is your permission to quit.

Some of your writer friends won’t understand. You’ll get pep talks that tell you to keep going. But you don’t have to. Do what makes you happy.

And here’s what I think. I can’t prove it, and I definitely have survivor’s bias, but I truly believe it. If you’re a writer and you love it, it won’t let you quit forever. It may be 45 days, it might be 20 years, but if you’re a writer and you love it, you’re going to love it again someday. There’s going to be a moment where something hits you, and you’re like, oh…I have to write this.

And it’s never too late.