Why I Quit (for Now)
On a creative life in recession
This has everything to do with RVing and nothing to do with RVing.
Last week, upon receiving the news that Anthropic’s settlement with authors for having stolen their works for the training and development of large language models has at last been approved, I posted something on Facebook: I used to write books.
I’ll acknowledge it up front: It was a provocative statement born of my current feelings:
An unwillingness to make the physical, mental, and emotional commitment to writing book-length fiction.
Alarm at how AI has invaded and befouled the human creation of art.
A lack of fitting in with the writing community where I live (when I’m not on the road). I’ve just never, ever felt comfortable among authors, en masse. I’ve made some cherished friendships with individual writers, but I’ve also met a few of the most miserable human beings I’ve encountered in any professional capacity. This wears on me. (And just to head off the idea that I think I’m groovy and some of my contemporaries are not: I suspect they’re as confounded by me as I am by them. The only—only—saving grace of the writing life, for me, is that the best part of it takes place in solitude.)
A general sense of being depleted artistically.
It’s that last one, more than the others, that set in first and has lingered longer than I thought it would. In all these months since I landed on the idea of traveling the country, then actually undertook it, I’ve had exactly one story idea that I thought was worth a damn…and not even a scintilla of motivation to start working it up in my head and my heart.
This energy for writing stories has occasionally come and gone in the nearly twenty years I’ve been pursuing fiction seriously. This time, though, it has gone and stayed gone. At this point, I’ve begun to wonder if it’s permanently subterranean. When those thoughts surface, I try to quell them.
Were I pressed to say what I really think, I’d say this: I still don’t think the absence will last.
But what I think hardly seems to matter much now.
It all sounds grim, doesn’t it?
It’s not. Not entirely, anyway.
My heart is full on many days. My senses of wonder and curiosity—essential to living the way I desire—still get ignited, but something else is striking the match.
Now, it’s getting to the next place, viewing it with wide-eyed wonder, and venturing into its public spaces, its markets, its restaurants, and striking up conversations. I yearn for that first walk of the day with Fretless, when the world is quiet. I thrill when I settle into a nice chat with a temporary neighbor. “That’s a nice (whatever the rig happens to be)” is an almost flawless opener. People love to talk about their RVs. Eventually, they talk about other things. Then, inevitably, common ground rises up beneath our feet.
I love that RVing stoked a dormant torch for math and physics. Some people like crosswords or jigsaw puzzles; I like dialing in the weights and measures of a trailer—I’ve had four of them, by god, so I’ve had plenty of practice—and getting the numbers just right.
I’m on an adventure, whether I’m hanging close to home in Billings or setting out on the asphalt to somewhere new. It wouldn’t be much of a life without that.
But there’s also this missing piece, one I’ve alluded to before: I’m most fulfilled when who I am and what I do are overlapping circles in the Venn diagram.
Right now, the what-I-do column is too heavy with things I used to do, and I’m profoundly feeling that imbalance.
That’s why I hold hope for a return of the fire in my belly for creative things. It’s what I know. If I’m meant to do something else, it hasn’t revealed itself yet, and that’s an uncomfortable uncertainty given the way I’m wired.
So I drive to the next place—Iowa, here I come in a couple of weeks—and I drink it up. I open myself to the world and invite it in, or hope it invites me in. Either one works. It’s a place to start.
Life, man. It’s a journey and a process.
I relate. Although I wrote professionally my entire career as a journalist and researcher, I have barely opened my laptop in the six months and 29 days I have been retired. I have nothing rattling around my brain asking to be written. It just isn’t there. That said, I am having the time of my life playing in mud (pottery sculpture especially) and melted sand (stained glass). These are new playpens, and I’m energized to have the chance to play again.
You’ve also got me thinking of my neighbor’s son. Basically since he learned to toddle he had a ball, glove, or bat in hand. He dreamed of the big leagues and worked hard on that dream. Daily weight training. Practice. I still smile thinking of the ping! ping! from the backyard batting cage even as dusk settled. He had a bitter sip of coffee in the minors, but the adventure ended in the way it does for most boys when they become men. The last time we spoke I asked if he was still playing ball somewhere, and he shook his head and said something like, “Nah, I don’t want to play in a beer league.”
My case was probably burnout. His case is probably more about disappointment. Either way, we all are likely to hit these walls at some point. The more interesting story is the unwritten one about what comes next. I’m looking forward to that post from you, my friend.
Let me just say I’ve loved your books and you don’t owe the world a damn thing! Good on you for listening to the inner voice and not forcing the creative act. Admittedly this comes from a person who’s been retired a few years and can afford to be relaxed about such decisions, but seriously, respect and appreciation for your current path. Live well!