Beginnings Are On Quitting (and Not Quitting)
by Grant Faulkner
Since we’re nearing the halfway mark of JanYourStory here at Memoir Nation, I’ve been thinking of the “muddy middles” of a memoir—the muddles, rather—and I’ve been thinking of the topic of quitting in general.
I’ve been asking myself why I’ve quit things in the past—writing projects, sports teams, romantic relationships, friends, drinking, jobs.
Sometimes quitting is the right thing to do. Sometimes it’s the wrong thing to do.
I remembered one random moment that I’ve been mulling over. I joined the YMCA swim team when I was five years old. I was very proud of myself because I was the youngest person on the team, and people praised me for swimming with the big kids. Some of them were quite big. In fact, they seemed like giants.
During one practice, we all stood at the edge of the pool while the coach was talking, and inexplicably I started crying. Nothing happened. I was just overwhelmed, I think. Suddenly afraid. Intimidated by the pool and the people around me.
I was so embarrassed by my crying that I claimed the boy next to me punched me (truth be told he was the sort of boy who punched people for the fun of it).
I left practice that day, and I never returned to the swim team. I obviously wasn’t ready for that experience, so it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing that I quit. But I loved swimming, so part of me wishes that I would have gone back.
It’s not a traumatic story, but it made me think about how our fears and inhibitions can spring up out of nowhere and tell us to turn back. It made me think about how we have to listen to our emotions and try to understand them. But it also made me think about how now, as an adult, I can process the anxieties of life and try to come up with a strategy of how to deal with them.
Making your story an invitation
Sometimes we’re not ready to write our story. It’s too fearful. It’s too fraught. It’s good to be attuned to our feelings and to honor them because sometimes we need more distance and time before we’re ready to see how our experience might be a learning opportunity.
But there are also ways to keep the door to your story open, to form your story into more of an invitation. Here are some methods to keep the momentum of your story moving forward:
You needn’t launch into a full-length memoir—start with short fragments in the form of a personal essay, then string them together thematically or chronologically to make a full-length memoir later.
Make a list of potential scenes and then rate them one to ten in terms of the pain or discomfort you feel. Write the scenes that are between four and seven, where you have feelings about a situation but they’re not powerful enough to roil too much up.
Journal extensively. Lower the stakes. Write poems about your life. Write word-scapes, word jumbles. Free associate. Say “Yes, and …” Play.
Be with writers even if you’re not writing. Sometimes writers who are unable to write still keep gathering in their writing group regularly just to be in touch with creativity and keep the door open for the healing balm of a story. So keep joining us in Memoir Nation!
Exploring your urge to quit—or not quit
I actually tend to be a non-quitter. Sometimes I think I should learn how to be a better quitter. I was talking with a friend recently who told me that after 65 years and a whole spectrum of relationships, she was always the one who tried to make it work.
She called herself a “trier.” I confessed that I was a trier as well—a trier with humans and jobs and writing projects and even finishing books and bad movies.
So I’m curious about quitting. I offered this prompt in my accountability session:
Write about a time you—or a person in your memoir—quit something that they cared about.
It can be about quitting anything: writing a memoir, a relationship, a job, a sport, smoking.
Make a list of the reasons for the quitting.
What did the act of quitting reveal about your character or you?
Was quitting good or bad? Both?
I hope you don’t quit, writers! On the days I haven’t written this month, I’ve enjoyed hanging out with you in a write-in or by reading all of the encouraging comments in our Community!
It’s a reminder: you can still write, even when you’re not writing. Writing happens off the page as well as on it.
Stay the course. You’ve got this. And if you’ve been writing with us this January, share your word count if you feel so inclined.
It’s January 12 and I’ve written 5,312 new words. And you know what else? I’m not going to quit.
Podcast: Jose Antonio Vargas
This week’s episode is a timely one—an interview with Jose Antonio Vargas, who outed himself as an undocumented immigrant when he started his nonprofit, Define American. His memoir is Dear America, which was updated last year to include new material for living in Trump’s America.
In this interview, Jose shares his experiences with ICE and being undocumented in this country, as well as his insights on the Black/white binary, the construction of race, and so much more. We recorded this episode the day after International Human Rights Day—and Jose’s interview, book, and experience gives voice to the realities of who is being targeted by our draconian immigration policies and how it feels. An important listen.
Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and Tony-nominated theatrical producer. A leading voice for the human rights of immigrants, he founded the nonprofit immigrant storytelling organization Define American, and he explores all facets of immigration as host of its YouTube show and podcast Define American with Jose Antonio Vargas. His best-selling memoir, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, was published in 2018, with an updated edition in 2025. His second book, White Is Not a Country, will examine America’s foundational Black and White racial binary, and where everyone else fits within and outside that binary.
