Quit*

The following is a detailed breakdown—a real A to Z type thing, bear with me—of the creative process, and at the end there's a quiz, but not the pop kind since you know about it ahead of time, so pay attention:

You decide you want to do a Thing. You want to be a Role. This could be Author, or Screenwriter, or Cartographer, it doesn't matter what it might be because you're going to do it, and it's going to bring you great joy.

For sake of this discussion, let's run with Screenwriter.

You start doing it, the screenwriting, and if you're doing it right (and let's say that you are, even though some of you aren't), you're doing due diligence with research and prep.

And it doesn't go very well at first, does it? You read some scripts and some articles about formatting and how a script looks, and maybe a book about saving a cat because you can't kill a cat, and you think, well, that's easy enough, but you started writing before you were ready. Because of course you did. Why wouldn't you? Still, it doesn't go very well, as we said, but you're determined because you told a friend you were going to be a Screenwriter, and then they told another friend, and then someone at Thanksgiving asked you about being a Screenwriter in front of everyone, and now you're fucked.

A year passes. Time comes and goes. Friends marry. The leaves change color (unless you prematurely moved to Los Angeles to start your Screenwriter career, so the leaves haven't changed color, and time has frozen against the infinite void of the sea). But anyway, you finally did it: you wrote your First Script. And you know what? "I gotta say, I really think this is a good script, especially for my First Script!" And you give it to the hometown friend you first told about being—about becoming—a Screenwriter. Let's call them Kip. And Kip says "you know, this is actually really good," and Kip should know because he worked at a video store in college.

So you send out your First Script to more friends, because you made more friends, because you joined a screenwriting group / met people on social / went through a film program, or whatnot. They all say the same thing—"this is actually really good." Except for a few who, very suspiciously, think it's a good start and have LOTS of notes, but you just say thanks and ignore them because they're probably jealous, and why can't it be THEM who wrote such a great First Script. They'll make it one day, those passionate, bitter fools.

Then First Script goes out into the world where it's judged, harshly, against the infinite void of the sea, you know, if you moved to Los Angeles, and even though all those people are wrong too, you tell yourself ...

I have to write a Second Script.

But Second Script misses the mark because "you're trying to write to the market," which Kip, who just started law school, confirms. You have to write WHAT YOU KNOW™️. And the thing is, Kip's correct. Good ol' Kip. He really nailed this one. He went to Emerson and knows things. You have to write something personal. Something with feeling that makes others feel feelings.

It's Year 2 or 3 or 14 by now, and odd jobs and failed starts have come and went, and some of the writers in your screenwriting group have "made it" because they found a rep, so obviously that means they made it, but they haven't gotten paid or landed any writing assignments yet, and that's okay because they made it.

You decide to revisit First Script. But now, you hate it. You can't believe you sent that to anyone. Embarrassing. You’re ashamed. What were you thinking? So you're not sure what to do, but every Thanksgiving your uncle asks, "how's the writing going?" and he reminds you "the film industry is really hard to break into," he hears, because he has a friend whose niece—Amanda Stippy, do you know Amanda?—is in the film industry and she's staffed on some phat show, but boy is it hard. You can't quit now. Amanda might read your pilot and get you staffed on the same show. Also, that's not how it works, and Amanda tells you as much through an email ending with "keep writing!" and another "Best," before their signature: "Staff Writer - Phat HBO Show.” And all you can think of is her word repetition with "best." This person—this girl, you say to yourself, because you're at rock bottom—is supposed to be a writer?

And now you hate screenwriting, don't you? So you hate-write. Everyone loves a good hate-write. Maybe a torture porn script about a frustrated husband who tortures people in pornographic ways—is this what you want, Hollywood? But it doesn't matter, it's all garbage and remakes and comic book movies out there, anyhow. The system is against you. Bah, that's it. Obviously. The system isn't built for people like you. For Stories That Matter. It's all gonna be AI slop eventually. What a bogus world we're living in, and that same world is going to end soon, so how could you even focus on writing? You know, with the world the way it is? The suffering.

You make it your crusade to keep writing, then stop writing, but you'll tell everyone you're a writer and spend most of your time online as an anti-AI activist to distract you from the lack of writing.

It's Year 30. You have six unproduced screenplays, because you're a Screenwriter, for Christ's sake, and you made it, even though Hollywood never gave you a chance. You move back to your hometown. You work at Kip's old video store, but video stores don't exist anymore. You're in a parallel universe. Every movie in theaters is AI slop, even if it's not AI. You collect physical media on sale. Sometimes (often) you steal it from dumpsters. You've stopped going to Thanksgivings. You stopped getting invited. There is no joy. A local film festival screens old movies, and you think, "it was easier back then ... I was born in the wrong time."

... fin.

So, at what point should Screenwriter have quit?

a) immediately!
b) after Year 1
c) after Year 3
d) never, they gave it their best effort!

Well, the answer is there is no answer.

It's certainly not A.

And in this specific scenario, it's certainly not D.

But there was a point—a juicy, flawless turning point—in Screenwriter's life where they needed to quit. If not only temporarily. To assess the situation. To ask themselves the big questions that are their God-given responsibility to ask as a creative and as a storyteller. Because we're all storytellers, right? Like, I just told you a story. It might be lousy and you hate it and can't believe you're still reading this maybe-AI slop, but it's a story.

They could have said—

"Am I listening to the right people?"

"Am I being receptive to advice?"

"Am I letting jealously ruin a good time?"

“Am I presenting as a pain in the ass for a collaborative field?”

"If I really am a good writer with potential, am I writing the things that the market I'm writing for (i.e. Hollywood or indie) will want to invest time and money and personal sacrifice in?"

"Do I truly want to be a screenwriter? Or can I get my stories produced in some other form? Am I cut out for the rigors of being a professional, or do I want to keep it as a hobby? If I want it as a hobby, are my expectations reasonable?"

"Or ..."

(pay attention to this one, it's a real banger, and the whole point of this essay)

"... should I explore writing for something else? Am I really a novelist? A playwright? Am I a comic book writer? That might be fun, I've always loved comic books, and entrepreneurship, and controlling my own material—holy smithereens, that's what I should be investing my time and money in!"

And I'd bet one of those things works out, even if it doesn't become their career. Or maybe it does. Or maybe none of it works out, because your timing was bad, or you didn’t catch a break like Screenwriter #2 and #827, or were happy being creative on your own terms. But at least they have the satisfaction in knowing they tried, for fuck's sake, and they didn't play by the rules of “the system” for decades, or try and fit into a box they were never meant to open in the first place, reprimanding themselves for their self-imposed shortcomings when sometimes it’s out of your hands.

The haters will tell you to never give up. Because they think quitting is failure, and they bought into the toxic positivity industrial complex pervading every social circle and writers group and cartography club on the planet. They're lost souls. It's sad—but also kind of funny sometimes if you see their posts on social—but anyhow, the point is, quitting isn't failure, it's enlightenment. It's the most selfishly selfless thing you can do—to step back and give yourself a minute for clarity, to explore different things, and to find your actual niche in the arts, whether that means circling back to what you started with or leaping forward into something new and different that your family can also bitch about every holiday.

That said, I'm not an essayist, I don't wanna be an essayist, and I quit.

*Featured image by Jorm Sangsorn (Adobe)