On the rightness of stopping writing . . .

Alessandro Baricco

Wikipedia

In "His Penetrating Gaze" (NYT, August 29, 2014), Rachel Donadio reviews Alessandro Baricco's complex novel Mr. Gwyn and Three Times at Dawn, and I was drawn to this part:

We begin in contemporary London, where the novelist Jasper Gwyn, "quite fashionable in England and fairly well known abroad," has decided, out of the blue, at the age of 43, to stop writing. He announces this via an article in The Guardian listing 52 things he will never do again. "And the last was: write books. His brilliant career was already over."

Perhaps I, too, should announce in The Guardian that I will stop writing. Doing so, might have an inverse effect on my brilliant career.

If Miles Franklin can do it, I can do it! She withdrew her first book from publication, but still had a brilliant career.