Thinking the Unthinkable

 Stop writing?  Unthinkable.  You couldn't, could you?

I blog (on my own blog, Write On) on the first Wednesday of every month for the Insecure Writers’ Support Group, an American writers’ ‘bloghop’.  In July our optional topic was what – if anything – might persuade us to quit writing. As my computer-related headaches, neck and shoulder pain were giving me particular trouble at that time, I’m afraid my response, ‘Well, now, at this moment, not a lot!  For me, writing hurts.’  However, I received many helpful and supportive replies from the IWSG lot, so here I am, still at it.

 Yet, composing that blog post earlier this month got me thinking about what would make – not just me, but any writer – give up writing.

1.  …Apart from computer-related headaches, neck and shoulder pain, commonly known as RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury).  We’ll call that number one.  It affects almost all of us.
   
   
2. Lack of success.  Maybe we had set our heart on becoming published or getting shorter pieces placed in periodicals, and we didn’t get there.  Or we aimed to make a living from writing and didn’t.  The Brontes wrote because they needed to earn money from their writing; it beat working as a governess.
   
   
3. A hurtful comment, or several, about our writing.
   
   
4. Other activities become more important to us than writing – drawing and painting, music, gardening, crafts.  All these are ways of expressing creativity.  Funnily enough, few ACW writers cook recreationally.  I cook, but my colleagues who don’t get more writing done.
   
   
5. Other commitments, maybe work, maybe caring commitments.
   
   
6. Ideas dry up.  Some people have said everything they want to say in one book.
   
   
7. Not enjoying writing anymore.

Of course, we all want to carry on writing… and on… and on… and we ignore and surmount obstacles, but, perhaps, God is prompting some scribblers to move on and serve Him in other ways.  Maybe some of His prompts would feel like some of 1-7 above.

 ‘For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.’ (Ecclesiastes 3: 1-4).

 

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Rosemary Johnson has had many short stories published, in print and online, amongst other places, Cafe Lit, Scribble, The Copperfield Review, Fiction on the Web and 101 Words.  She has also contributed to Together magazine and Christian Writer.  She has also written a historical novel, set in the Solidarity years in Poland.  In real life, she is a retired IT lecturer, living in Suffolk with her husband and cat.