Dear Future Me: Encouragement for Writers Who Feel Like Quitting

A pep talk for tired authors everywhere.

Me, probably.

There’s a version of me in 2050 who’s still writing. Still telling stories. Still holding a pen (or whatever we’re using by then) with love, snacks, and just enough existential dread to fuel a decent subplot.

By then, my Roomba and Keurig will hopefully have formed a peaceful alliance. My spine will be held together by sheer stubbornness and a heating pad that charges via sighs. But I’ll still be here, writing.

And recently, I started wondering what that future version of me would say to me now. To us. The authors juggling plot holes, launch stress, and a deep sense of "maybe I’ll just become a cryptid and live in the woods with my unfinished draft."

Here’s what she said.

Dear Future Me a.k.a the writer who’s tired (and maybe crying in their email inbox):

Keep going. I know what it’s like to pour your whole soul into a project and then wonder if it will ever matter to anyone but your dog and that one beta reader who ghosted you halfway through.

But I promise, every word counted. Even the ones you cut. Even the ones you rewrote seventeen times and still think might be trash.

You won’t always get feedback. Sometimes the silence is louder than the screaming doubt. But future you? She’s still here because you didn’t stop.

On not knowing where the hell this is going:

You don’t need to know how it ends. You just need to write the next honest sentence. Then the next one. Then drink some water, because you haven’t in six hours and your organs are starting to unionize.

We don’t write because it’s easy. We write because something in us refuses to shut up.

Even when everything feels too loud, too quiet, too much, we still come back to the page.

That’s brave. That’s wild. That’s the whole point.

Creativity is a stubborn kind of hope.

Every chapter you wrote between meetings, every character you fleshed out while cooking dinner, every weird idea you followed because it wouldn’t leave you alone... that’s the stuff. That’s the rebellion.

Future you isn’t worried about Goodreads* reviews. She’s proud of every time you showed up when you could’ve just not.

So, writer to writer:

If you're in a rough season, burnt out, unsure, half convinced your story makes no sense, you are not behind.

You are mid-story.

And yes, the world may be on fire. But somehow, here we are, still writing.

One sentence at a time. One weird character arc at a time. One "how did this become a subplot about bees" moment at a time.

Let’s keep going.

We’re not alone.

I’ll see you in the bookstores. Still.

— M

P.S. Future Me says thanks for keeping the snacks stocked and the hope alive.

*Yeah, I'll still care. :-)