Writers stop but they don't quit

How to tell the difference – and thoughts to get you through your rewrite.

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Hello! The weather has been so nice in London for so many weeks now that I started to imagine I live in California. When I woke up this morning to find that it is dark, grey and raining – and all the blossom has washed off the tree outside my bedroom – it felt like somebody had stolen the next five months and dumped us abruptly in October. I hope it’s brighter where you are.

It was so great to chat with some of you in the comments under my newsletter a couple of weeks ago about the downturn in creative jobs – thank you. I love hearing from people. I have been thinking a lot about making the most of the confusing gathering place that is Substack, and I have a few good things up my sleeve that I will bring you in the months to come. More soon.

At the moment I’m reading Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland, which I really recommend if you struggle with the emotional rollercoaster of being creative. (By the way, I have collected more of my favourite writing books on Bookshop.org here).

The authors, as well as being writers, are primarily photographers who studied under Ansel Adams. It’s so interesting to me that regardless of whether your passion is taking photographs, painting portraits, recording songs or writing stories, you will come up against the same discomfort in the process, and the same occasional temptation to give up and run away.

I’m reading the book and I keep turning over pages to mark wisdom that I want to keep hold of. E.g.:

The artist’s life is frustrating not because the passage is slow, but because he imagines it to be fast.

Ugh – so true. I write every day, but it takes me so long for an idea to crystallise and become substantial. That’s just par for the course.

Bayles and Orland also make a crucial point about ‘quitting’ versus ‘stopping’, which is what I want to expand on in this letter.