Why I stopped writing my last novel and why this was an important mental health decision.

I'm writing a new novel.

I had gotten about 50,000 words in on what was my last novel before giving up. Well, I didn't give up so much as put it on hold in favor of things I thought were better ideas for the time being, but the point is, I got rather far on it before saying, "No, I'm going to do something else, regardless of these 50,000 words."

I had told people that I was not going to give up on this one. "I'm going to complete this one," I said. "I'm actually going to do it." I had explicitly said I wouldn't do things like the thing I am doing now.

I still think this was a good decision, though. And you know why?

It's because I value my mental health.

Let me explain. I was writing a certain scene in the novel that made me rather uncomfortable for whatever reason. After taking the time to get through writing it (and being not a little bit uncomfortable, both whilst writing and whilst doing my regular life, during this time), I realized it was because of some of the things that were going on in that scene. They included but were not limited to manipulation, toxic relationships, people trying to become close to each other but not succeeding, and antagonistic characters with worldviews similar to twisted versions of my own.

This was very good to know, but I thought further and realized that my whole novel was like this. This was not exactly good for me. These things, while important and worthy things for people to write about, make me uncomfortable, and while I can get into the world of a story that features these things, I'm not exactly in the best mental health while being in such a world.

I thought even further and realized that the vast most of my writing is like this. That is, I naturally gravitate towards writing stories with themes like manipulation, toxic relationships, mental illness, alienation - things that, while important and worthy things for people to write about, make me uncomfortable and do not exactly put me in the best of mental health.

In fifteen minutes, I came up with no less than seven detailed examples of stories I had come up with that featured things like these. I then wondered if there were any themes that pop up in my writing a lot that aren't inherently unpleasant or detrimental to my mental health. In fifteen minutes, I came up with two. They were 1. the idea of places (like houses, spacecraft, planets, etc.) having souls or personifications, and 2. odd or whimsical occurrences happening for no apparent reason, especially in the same place.

The revelation that there are only two things about which I frequently write that don't inherently take a toll on my mental health was disheartening to say the least, and I think it says a lot about who I fundamentally am as a person. However, the bright side is that it didn't take me long to formulate a story idea featuring these two themes, and after making some notes about such an idea, I came up with something and I've begun writing it. (I've made a pretty good amount of progress in a relatively short amount of time, and the writing itself is not only tolerable but even enjoyable.)

The even brighter side is that, now that I've identified the problem, I'm going to make steps towards a solution. I know what I write about that makes my bad mental health even worse. I'm figuring out how to not write about them, or at least how to write something that isn't fundamentally based around them. Maybe, after I'm done with a project that demonstrates my ability to write something that isn't fundamentally based around these things, I'll find a way to write something that incorporates my typical themes and still isn't detrimental to my mental health. I have no idea how this would be even possible, but that's part of the process - figuring out how to make the impossible possible.

So that's why I'm abandoning (at least temporarily) a project on which I had come so far. I realized it just wasn't good for me and that most of my writing wasn't good for me and it was time to make a change. And so far, this change has been working really really well. I'm glad I made it.