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How to Give Your Manuscript the Finger
On Knowing When It’s Time to Quit
“Winners never quit, and quitters never win.”
We’ve all heard those sage words of Vince Lombardi’s for aeons. But I’m not a fan of that quote. I think it’s an entirely false and dangerous thing to say because winners quit all the time. They leave jobs that don’t fulfil them to move on to something better, quit toxic, damaging relationships to pursue healthier ones or stop working on a manuscript that just isn’t going anywhere.
I’m not suggesting we crumple up our stories at the first plot tangle we trip over. If that were our course of action, we would never complete anything. But if you’ve been spinning your wheels on the same piece of writing for years, or if you’ve had a novel out on submission and received enough rejection letters to wallpaper your entire living room, it might be time to think about moving on to something else.
Of course, if you are still in love with your story, even after said rejections, and believe in it with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns, don’t give up on it. But do give it a thorough check-up and, if necessary, perform some radical reconstructive surgery.
Not long ago, I pulled an ancient, faded, printed-off manuscript from the back of a dusty spidery…
