I once read, I’ve no idea where, that the quality that most successful people share in common is that they know when to quit.
It seems a brilliant notion to me. But it is a perilous idea to have in my head. Everything since has become an exercise of balancing results on the scales of persistence. When do I give up?
It is not my nature to just give something a try and then move on.
I have stuck with the worst prospects for relationships in my life and am single to this day almost without exception. I have stood by bad friends who’ve stolen from me, lied to me, betrayed me and ditched me for better offers. I’m getting better with the friends thing, mostly by getting out of it. I’ve adopted a policy of making time only for people who make the effort – I want only to be with people who want to be with me. No sign on the boyfriend front yet – ouch — but I’ve a much better group of friends.
Professionally, I’m wondering how to apply this same idea.
It took ten years to get my first novel, Say Uncle, published. It took nearly three just to write it. I had three other jobs at the time and wrote it in long hand — personal computers were just the wet dreams of Jobs and Woz and Bill back in the before times.
Once I was done writing I faced a tough market. The idea of a book about a single gay man raising a child was not well received by the very conservative publishing world in the 80’s. It wasn’t a daily effort, but I persisted. In the end, the book was published. While it was not a big success, it changed my life and set me on a new course.
It’s fifteen years later now and I wonder, is it time to quit?
I wrote a sequel to the first novel, centered around the idea of gay marriage but that was too much for the still more conservative publishing world of the mid-90’s. Ironically, Say Uncle was pushed out of print by the memoir of a gay man adopting and raising a child. My controversial idea had become the banal musings of some journalist. I have written and published several other books since, though none original to me. Despite the success of those, I’ve had no other writer for hire offers either.
Still, I have persisted with my writing. There is now a stack of novels and other works. I keep trying to get this to work as a career, but it doesn’t seem to want to work for me. I have thought to walk away.
I worked for a medical professional organization for a time. I was fired because my work was too good – no kidding, that’s actually what they said. There was a stint on a little TV show, Game World, working as a script coordinator. It was cancelled because the new guy in charge of the network didn’t think of it. You could tell he cancelled it for his ego because he replaced it, not with another show, but with infomercials. Each time one of these doors closed, writing came back to me as the thing to do.
Yet my writing career is a bit like the chase sequence in a Scooby Doo cartoon. You know those scenes where the characters run randomly in and out of the many doors lining a long hallway? Like that.
1. The villain chases the gang into the hallway and everyone disappears behind a different door.
The offer of the Queer as Folk novelization series arrived the day I cashed my last unemployment check from the doctor’s group and came with the promise of work on the show. The production of Say Uncle as a movie brought a period of financial independence and presented itself following the cancellation of Game World.
2. Velma and Shaggy run out of doors on opposite sides of the hallway than the ones they entered.
Then QAF “decided to go another way”.
3. Shag and Scoob emerge from the same door.
The studio that was going to make the movie was bought just as we were ready to go into production.
4. The villain backs into Shag and Scooby and everyone runs into the nearest door.
Most recently, the spectacular success of the Star books that I developed as a series with Pamela Anderson was destroyed without explanation by Ms. Anderson. She has not offered any reason or returned a phone call or even made any effort to find out if I’m okay after ending the project just before it made me any money and leaving me destitute.
5. Daphne and Freddie collide with Velma, Shag and Scoob.
So here I am again, in a heap in the middle of the hallway. I keep writing and persisting, but I’m faced with that little habit of the successful? Should I quit? And if I do, what to do now?
I know the ending of everything is the beginning of everything else. I think the real talent is knowing and recognizing when the end has actually come. Am I there? Or am I just waiting in the hallway for the next door to open. Will it be another villain or the hero this time?
What’s next?
Eric Shaw Quinn 
Taking the Scooby Doo analogy a step further… The kids’ persistence always brings about a surprising and unexpected outcome. In real world terms, don’t give up because you never know what’s gonna happen next!
If you’re not happy doing what you’re doing but you’re doing well with it it’s one thing, but if you’re not happy and not doing well with it, then try something new! That might sound like something out of a cliché chick flick, but hey, give it a shot?
On Friendships/People etc and knowing when to quit: I have the three strike and you are OUT rule. It has worked for years.. do you remember Jan Thompson from SVH? Well, one summer first week at Myrtle Beach she grinded on my every word. Finally, after the third time, now keep in mind, I drove, I just said, you find another way back to Columbia. Needless to say, she hated me from then on and I knew there were enough SVH peeps she could ask for a ride but I had had enough. I still live by the three strike rule. And, by the way, my ex and his wife have only one more left and it is actually a “grace” strike. They striked out years ago but because of the kids.. yadda yadda..
Now, as for your writing, there are hidious shows on TV about the gay and lesbian community. I just don’t think they are doing them a good service. The new one on HBO sucks. Only one couple seems normal to me and when I say normal I don’t mean as in man/woman. I mean as in the way people in general live. The others make lesbians out to be too carefree sexually and ho dawgs. So, in saying that, take your knowledge from your life and books and write a sitcom or reality TV show. We need a real perspective and not one that makes the same gender relationships seem all about SEX because we all know they are not. Your writing is amusing, intelligent, and most of all worth my time reading. I don’t have adhd but when I read I do!!! You capture my attention and keep it. So, keep on writing… People like yourself who are still single have the best hearts. Anyhow, to dream and keep going is ok in certain instances. (damn, I need spellcheck!) thanks for my daily dose of ERIC…. I do need to read your book…PS. a parent is a parent…love has no gender…
gay, lesbian, etc… divorce happens and single peeps raise kids all of the time.. i am one of them. NEXT…..
I tend to balance out the ‘when do I quit’ dilemmas with the ‘when or how do I start’ problems. Some days quitting feels like it would be the easiest thing to do because the thing you want to quit was never really what you dreamed of doing anyway…well not that you ever had a clear dream of what you wanted to do…but sometimes it’s necessary to keep going just for the sake of survival….sometimes it’s because you don’t have a freakin’ clue what you would do anyway. I envy you that you have had the success that you have had…not to mention you have made an impression in my life and I am sure many others, that would tend to make me believe that you are doing what you are meant to…but then again who the hell am I anyway? I think I realized that life is hard when I was 8 years old and starting my third grade 3 class. We moved so much and life was full of situations and one way tickets right from the get go. I haven’t been proved wrong since then. I think because I was moved around so much and never really settled that it contributed to my lack of any sense of personal self regarding what I was meant to do or even what I wanted to do. Every part of my life seemed to be a Cliff Notes version of everyone else’s…little soundbites of events with no continuity or even positivity. I always thought it would just come to me one day…BOOM!…that’s what I want to be. But of course life isn’t like that(for me anyway), and I spent so much time spinning in circles that even the slightest light at the end of the tunnel sent me reeling because I knew I would never have time to invest in it…and the things I did try and fail at miserably further fueled the fire that I would never be good at anything. So ideas come and I think well that’s a great idea but how do I start it…when would I have the time…who would support me and tell me what a great idea it is…when would I have the energy or the intelligence required to pull it off? So I go from not knowing when to walk away to not being able to put myself out there and let myself be and make mistakes and travel on life’s journey or whatever. All of the philosophers say that it’s not the destination it’s the journey, but what if the car never stopped long enough for you to get out and look around?