We're all writers here. We've all done it. We've all sat down to write, and something has come out. When does enough become enough, though? How do you know when you should just... stop? How do you know when to call it quits and move onto the next thing?
When to stop writing is one of the most difficult questions a writer faces, and it's not because writing is hard. It's because stopping is hard. The answer isn't as easy as it might seem. Sometimes, an idea will come to you just when you think you're done with it. You'll be ready to move on, and then—bam!—something new hits you, and it's like, whoa. If that happens, let yourself write the new idea down. And then go back to what you were working on before.
In the first place, you should never write for the purpose of writing. You should always write for a reason. It doesn’t have to be a profound reason, but it should be one you’re passionate about. That’s what makes writing worth doing.
Particularly when you're in the thick of it, whether that "it" is an essay or a novel or an email, it can be easy to get caught up in the flow state, where you're so deep inside your own words it feels like you can't see the outside world anymore. You feel like you could just keep going forever, and your fingers are flying across the keyboard and everything is coming together… until you look up and realize that two hours have passed, or five hours have passed, or five days have passed—and you still don't know how this story ends.
But even if writing isn't hard (at least not while you're in that sweet spot), knowing when to stop can be harder than hard.
The truth is that there's never an exact moment when you should stop writing. It's more of a process than a single event. And while this might sound counterintuitive, what I'm saying is that you should keep writing until your fingers start hurting and then take a break and write some more if you want to but only if you want to because the point of all of this is not to hurt yourself but to help others and sometimes that means hurting yourself but only sometimes because otherwise you'll be fine!
Everybody has their own answer to this question. Some people suggest waiting until the moment you feel ready, but that is terrible advice. You will never feel ready. Other people recommend that you only stop writing when your story ends, but we all know that's impossible.
If you're like me, you may find yourself tempted to answer this question by asking another question: How far can my fingers stretch before they break? It's always good to have goals in life, but what you need right now is an actual answer—not just another question.
I just wanted to let you know that there's not a single moment when you should stop writing. You don't ever have to stop. You can write for yourself or for others, or both, and the way you do it is up to you.
You can write about your experiences, your feelings, what you've learned—there's no limit. You can write poems and short stories and novels and fan fiction and lists of things that make you smile. You can write letters to people who are far away from you, and letters to your future self
Writing is difficult—it takes time and dedication, and it can feel like there are so many rules that are easy to break (and some that are seemingly impossible). But if you really care about what you’re writing, then all of that won’t matter as much.
If someone tells me I can’t do something because I don’t have enough experience or I’m not skilled enough at something, that just makes me want to prove them wrong even more. That drive helps me keep going when things get hard.
The point is that writing has so many uses, and there are so many ways to do it—you're really only limited by your imagination. And if anyone tries to tell you otherwise? Just remember: they're wrong.
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So Nice