Have you ever spent months or maybe even years agonizing over something, hoping that it’s perfect, but no matter what you try, it’s just disappointing? Take a deep breath and repeat after me: It’s okay to walk away. No, I’m not talking about raising children; I’m talking about writing novels.

In fact, writing might be the hardest thing to abandon. As for people, well, there’s billions of them, making a new one is easy and fun, and they’re all mostly the same. Jobs? Many of my former employees told me that quitting their job was the best decision they ever made. But a novel, something you’ve spent so much time and effort carefully crafting, that’s hard to walk away from.  

Now, you might be thinking, John, you’ve talked about sabotaging other authors as a savvy marketing strategy on this blog before; isn’t this whole article a ploy to get your potential competition to give up so you can increase your book sales? And second, you might add, John you’ve also admitted not only to publishing as many as 429 books, but also that many of them you don’t remember writing because you were being poisoned by your mentor? What the hell do you know about abandoning a book, you buttfucking liar?!

First of all, watch your tone, but second of all, all artists abandon projects. Michael Chabon and Kurt Vonnegut spent years on novels they eventually abandoned. Prince was famous for writing and producing dozens of albums that never saw the light of day.  Thomas Kincaid had supposedly created an amazing set of pastoral cottages paintings that would’ve completed reinvented the way we think about wall calendars, but he nearly died from sleep deprivation.

Abandoning a book does not mean you’re stupid or worthless. That’s a value statement that can only be calculated by looking at your annual salary, the quality of your sexual partners, where the rest of your high school classmates ended up and how much you can bench.

But of course, just because we accept that we can abandon a book doesn’t mean we should. Writing always comes with speed bumps. There are several facets to this decision that we’ll explore in this video. And to help illustrate the thought processes behind this, I’m going to talk about how I abandoned my third marriage.

We’ll cope as best we can on this edition of Stories’ Matter.

~

Now, I haven’t talked about my third wife as much as my other two wives on this blog. Perhaps that’s because this series has mostly been a ploy to win my second wife back, and because the lies and deceit and polygamy of my first wife have made for exciting reading and good life lessons. But my third wife has an interesting story all her own.

I met her near the end of 2021, shortly after D&E offices burned down.

Trisha was my therapist, and I was seeing her to process the grief I was experiencing after the fire happened. She was a bit older than most other women I have been involved with, but I saw past her graying hair and flabby arms and realized she was just as slutty as any 20-something college girl who I originally hoped would make my grief disappear.

Just 21 months later, I would decide that she wasn’t right for me. Now let’s look at how the lessons I learned can apply to our fiction.

Sign One – You Realize That There’s a Fundamental Flaw

Sometimes, a book just won’t work because of one crucial element. It might not matter if your setting, prose and plot are all immaculate if you realize your main character is like a less-likeable version of Ted Cruz.

Trisha had many wonderful qualities. Aside from the aforementioned sluttiness, she ran her own successful practice and she collected antique guns. And we had a lot in common. We loved literature and we both put a lot of pride in our work.

So why did the relationship fall apart? Well, as we’ll see, ultimately what we were after wasn’t the other person.

Sign Two – You Realize That Another Book Is Getting in the Way

Writing a book requires an intense amount of motivation. And unless the motivation is simply showing your former friends from college that they don’t know shit, the story idea itself has to motivate you. Maybe you feel it’s your duty to let the world know about the dangers of fracking. Or that the world simply hasn’t seen a young adult novel about a chosen one overthrowing a corrupt dystopia. But if another idea comes along that’s much better than this one, you might need to put your original story on ice.

Going back to Trisha, at this time in my life, I still hadn’t gotten over my second wife. Still probably haven’t, as fans of the channel keep pointing out. But I wasn’t the only one. You see, the main reason Trisha married me was because I reminded her of her son who died of a drug overdose at age 29. She would often manipulate me to act like him. And hey, no judgment. I know all about manipulation. I once convinced a girlfriend I had Memento disease so we could have sex five times a day. And I have to admit, I really liked getting tucked in at night and getting the freedom to sleep in my own bed in my own bedroom with an Xbox. But ultimately, she couldn’t be Cindy any more than I could be Declan.

Sign Three – You Have Changed As a Writer

Being a writer necessitates growth. Where would the literary world be today if James Patterson decided he just wanted to write jingles for toy companies? When I read my earliest novels, I often wonder who that man was. I also thank God most of them are out of print and my fans can’t use them to cancel me.

As for Trisha and I, even when we both realized what was happening, we didn’t leave each other. After all, we’d already put a lot of work into the relationship and our friends chipped in to buy us a cruise as our wedding present and it felt wrong not to use it.

Sign Four – It’s Just Not Fun Anymore

Let’s be honest, if you’re watching this video, you’re not going to make any money from writing. The process should at least be fun. Maybe not as fun as having friends or watching movies. But if your book really brings you no joy, it’s time to let it go.

I don’t think I hated being married per se, but… after a while, I got really sick of doing trigonometry homework. And I have to think Trisha really didn’t like me constantly calling escort agencies to try and find a hooker that looked like Cindy.

Sign Five – Everyone else hates it

You might finish a whole book very smoothly. Maybe there wasn’t any doubt in your mind and you never experienced writer’s block. But suddenly, your beta readers, your agent, your publisher, and especially your sensitivity reader give you feedback that… this thing will not sell well. Now I’ve experienced this several times in my life, and usually I don’t listen and publish anyway. But there have been occasions when I’ve regretted it.

Trisha and my divorce wasn’t instigated by us but by our friends and family. People were really put off by her forcing me to wear Declan’s clothes. The high school graduation photographer in particular had to be bribed a lot to take the photos she wanted. And the whole legal ordeal with Cindy’s new husband getting a restraining order put on me brought a lot of shame to Trisha.

But one good thing did come out of it. Two days after our divorce, I decided to start this blog. And now I can channel all of my horrible feelings about all of my marriages into literary advice for others.