Welcome! And Re-Welcome!

Looking for Reasons Not To Quit? You Found 'Em.

Dear Jennifer and Yoni and Michelle, Kim and Scott and Jessica and Shel, Mike and Chris and Hernando and Benjamin and Donna, Mary and Elizabeth and Sophie and Heidi and Lisa and Richard, Sara and KR and Adam and Kristi and James and Sydney and Beth and Nikki and Cheryl and Barbara and Julie and Sandy and Gee and Joanne and Jen and DJ and Gina and Don and Marco and Ami and Dean and Bluma and Jon and you:

Welcome.

If you’re looking for Reasons Not To Quit, you’ve found them.

There has been a gorgeous stream of new people subscribing lately and I am delighted and touched to see all y’all.

This is me while out walking the dogs in my little town. The water behind me is a bit of the Cape Fear River delta.

I make my living as a writer, editor, provider of literary services, educator, and coach/consultant. My readers and clients are how I buy the dog food and keep the lights on. The dogs and I thank you!

Now that you’re here, I want to tell you a little bit about Reasons Not To Quit. Specifically, I want to tell you the story of why it exists.

Reasons Not to Quit #1856: You’ve never been exactly where you are right now before, so don’t be surprised when you don’t know exactly where everything is.

In November 2016 I discovered that I needed something to look forward to and give me some daily momentum. On a whim, I started writing little one-liner “reasons not to quit” and posting them to Facebook and Twitter. (I no longer use either.)

I never intended it to be an ongoing thing. I was writing a doctoral dissertation and freelancing and struggling with an incorrectly diagnosed major depressive disorder, teaching and trying to write more books and dealing with a terminally ill parent and trying to figure out what I was trying to do with the one wild and precious life I’d comprehensively upended for excellent reasons in the midst of my 40s.

(It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I’d do it again in a heartbeat, but sooner and more and with a live band and heavy hors d’oeuvres.)

But also, I needed reasons not to quit. And as November turned into December and then January and February and March and I kept on sitting down and coming up with these little one- or two-sentence reasons not to quit, they somehow grew capital letters. My reasons not to quit had become Reasons Not To Quit. I suppose I needed them to be.

Other people told me they’d started to count on them too.

Reasons Not To Quit #197: Start where you are. It’s the only thing you can do. Quitting or not quitting is just window-dressing.

I wrote Reasons Not To Quit daily for almost six years. I wrote them through one and a half Presidential administrations, through the first terrifying years of a global pandemic, the deaths of both my parents, finishing my Ph.D., a full-time academic job, having a new book enter the world in the midst of lockdown, and a handful of other calming, serene, stress-free events.

Then I took a break. (I needed one.)

It turned out I missed it.

In May 2024, I brought it back and relaunched it into a new incarnation: a newsletter where the Reasons Not To Quit mingle with essays and articles and memoir and even books published in serial form.

That’s what you’ve got in front of you right now.

Reasons Not to Quit #1248: The only way we’re gonna make things better for the future is by getting through the now. Steady on, you’re doing fine.

I write Reasons Not To Quit for everyone trying to think smarter, write and create better, find motivation and audacity for the everyday, and figure out how to flourish a little more in this world.

I believe that you can survive your own thoughts, repair and renovate your broken heart, heal your history, and make things that help other people do the same. I believe it because I have faith that it’s true. But I believe it much more because I’ve done it and have the calluses and scars to show for it. I believe it most of all because because I’m still here and still learning how.

The work I do — whether it’s writing Reasons Not To Quit, working with writers and people with big ideas and bigger dreams, or helping people get unstuck — I do because I believe in the human capacity to thrive.

I like to think that you’re here because that’s the kind of thing that speaks to you in some way.

That makes us co-conspirators in the best, most beautiful work human beings can do.

Thanks for joining me. Holler if you need help. Bring your friends. I’m working on the live band and the heavy hors d’oeuvres.

In the meantime I’m giving a free seminar about writing books later this month (either 2/18 or 2/19, your choice, registration at the links), if you’re up for a different kind of party.

Thrive —

Hanne

p.s. A special huge shout out and so much love to Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg at Life is A Sacred Text, Kelli Dunham at Hoping Intentionally Gazette, Stephanie G Wilson, PhD at Freedom Over Fascism, Kari Bentley-Quinn at The Long Climb, Leela Sinha at Bringing Fire to Earth, Kari Kwinn at Virtual Latte, Jon Bailiff, Tripp Hudgins at The Lo-Fi Gospel Minute, and everyone else who has recommended Reasons Not To Quit to someone.