“dOn’T qUiT!”

No, do quit...

I’m sure you’ve heard it before—the “don’t quits” and the “don’t give ups!” The sentiment is nice, and I understand people use those phrases as encouragement. But it doesn’t always apply. Sometimes, in life, we have to know when to give up. Only we, as individuals, can make those calls. It’s never up to others to decide whether you should quit or keep going—especially if what you’re doing is robbing you of your peace. There are plenty of stories about people who chased a goal only to discover, once they reached it (or some semblance of reaching it), that it wasn’t worth the struggle. That was me with writing books.

I wasn’t even planning to publish them at first. Midway through drafting On Green, I decided to give it a proper shot on the market as a self‑published author. The journey to publishing was a massive headache—especially if you want to do it clean and right.

Then came marketing. I’ve talked about it in previous posts, but if you’d told me how much of a nightmare it is to get people to care about something you wrote, I would have skipped publishing entirely. Honestly.

I tried. I genuinely tried. I tried social media marketing with posts and videos and did all the things other creators were doing to get attention on their side hustles. Crickets. Then I bought a fancy stack of bookmarks and scattered them around town, handed them out to people. Crickets. Then I upped the ante and took my work on the road while still doing all the social media work. Crickets. Beyond an initial handful of people who took a wild chance on it, On Green just wasn’t an attractive model. I couldn’t get people to care. Been on local radio twice, and even had the most famous guy in Orlando give me a proper shout out…to more crickets.

The process left me broken and angry. My peace was robbed by my own work. My mental health literally tanked. I had done all this work and thought I owed it to myself to shoot for something bigger, and after about three years of working my ass off to figure things out, I was just burned out. The world didn’t give a fuck, so I stopped. I quit.

But that’s the beauty of it. There was so much peace in throwing in the towel. This thing I made no longer owned me. Sure, I had high hopes and dreams, but the reality is that a lot of us never get to experience true success from certain things. That’s life. Not every project gets its moment.

My books were a divergence from what I typically create anyway. I’m an atypical writer. It’s not my natural way of expressing myself, so I can’t be too mad that the books didn’t work out. I learned through all of this that I just didn’t like the process. Yes, I accomplished it, but it robbed me and left me with nothing but bitterness.

I watch other authors struggle online. I see so many indie writers waving their hands in the air, trying to get anyone to look or listen. Their follower base is mostly other authors who aren’t going to buy their work. I can only control myself, but I do wonder whether it’s really for them—or if, like me, they might need to focus on another form of creative expression that could be more impactful.

Some people absolutely love writing and don’t mind the silence, and that’s the purest attitude to have. But generating income is nice, too. I’m also of the belief that artists wouldn’t bother creating if there were zero chance of an audience. Part of self‑expression is the reward of having someone to express yourself to, whether money is involved or not. And at the end of the day, money makes creativity easier. Some people are fine with using a day job to fund their art, but I’d bet most would love to see a bit of coin for their efforts—if only to ease the stress of that day job.

It wasn’t like that for me, and I had to be honest about it. I only enjoy writing in short, blog‑like form, like this Substack. It feels like more of an accomplishment to offer a few minutes of insight rather than expect someone to pay me $20/$25 respectively for a days‑long read—especially when they don’t even like cars.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m finally honest about being an author, and I’m voicing it in hopes it helps others who are like me. It’s okay to quit something that isn’t working. Not everything will work out—and that’s a blessing, because it clears the slate for something new that might. It's healthier to quit something that robs you of peace.

—Dash