Self-Knowledge And Being Useful
(Is It Really That Simple?)
Dear Esteemed Readers,
I recently received an email from a frustrated writer.
This person has written multiple unpublished books, hired a creative writing coach, and paid professionals for editorial feedback—all in pursuit of becoming a published novelist. At the time of writing, the email sender’s manuscript was on submission and acquiring rejections.
The person wondered, Could I have written in the wrong genre? Do I have the wrong identity for the current zeitgeist? Is it too late in life to begin a writing career?
The email referenced the Substack post in which I write, “Whatever the writing gods have planned for me, I will learn from it.”
Then the person asked if it were really that simple.
I was thrown by the word “simple.”
Halfway through my response, I realized that I was writing a Substack post—this Substack post—which I hope will be useful to many.
What are the writing gods trying to teach me?
That’s a question I ask myself all the time.
You can ask yourself this question too.
If you’re not a writer, you can sub in whatever it is you find yourself doing a lot of.
If you’re freaked out by the phrase “the writing gods,” just sub in “the current state of my life.”
As in: What is the current state of my life trying to teach me?
For me, learning the answer requires receptivity, meditating on the question sincerely without any agenda other than learning, and ultimately accepting the lesson, no matter how much my ego protests.
I often remind myself that I need to earnestly ask and not petulantly demand.
Petulantly demanding: Why am I not getting what I want right now? Why is this so unfair?
Earnestly asking: How can my current reality serve as a wise teacher? How have I been blessed by this situation? Am I being nudged—or even shoved—in a certain direction?
The writing practice (and maybe each and every practice) absolutely can teach us. The problem is this: instead of knowledge, we often desire things like fame and riches and love and adoration and safety and ease. And we want those things now. I sure do. But getting what we long for can hinder our ability to learn. Not having is often what fuels our learning, which is why most protagonists get what they want at the end of the story—after they have learned the necessary lessons—and not at the beginning when they are still novices.
Lately, I have been getting this lesson: Matthew Quick needs to be more humble and patient. It’s been coming up over and over again. The harder I work, the less I have been getting what I thought I wanted. In the past few years—even though I occasionally think I have worked my way into some big break or unlocked a new professional relationship or written something truly genius—my career has slowed. Initially, I raged against this reality. I did not want to learn the lessons of humility and patience. As a result, I suffered greatly, until I began to practice being a more patient and humble writer. Ultimately, I learned that I had far less control over my career than I had previously believed.
I kept writing anyway.
I also took long solo walks on a daily basis. I did handyman work around the house. I helped and encouraged other writers. I celebrated the successes of colleagues. I spent time with my aging parents. I played with my dog. I read a lot—mostly books on psychology. I listened to music. I breathed. I made space for learning. I kissed and hugged my wife. I quieted my ego. Every night before I went to sleep, I listed things for which I am grateful and then prayed my thanks. After several years—this process is still happening—I started to feel less resentful and anxious. I slowly learned that—at this point in my life—I need to do all of the above more than I need my career to return to the hyper-warp speed of the past, when I was far more mentally ill. Doing all of the “slower” things listed above has made me into a different sort of person, who will write books that are unlike what I have written in the past.
For almost a decade, I tried just about everything to re-electrify my writing career, but I ultimately learned that there is only submitting to the current reality.
But isn’t this giving up? I can hear some readers asking. Don’t winners always find a way?
Well, I guess it depends on how we define ‘winning.’ And what I am describing is a way.
When I was getting the most attention from the publishing world and Hollywood, I was also an alcoholic who often felt suicidal. Correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, of course. But the attention—while providing money and opportunities for career advancement—also took me to some dark places.
I found myself recently saying this to another writer: “Acquiring success before you have done the necessary spiritual and mental health work on yourself can be a curse.”
I have a vivid memory of doing a media tour for Harvey Weinstein during the Silver Linings Oscars campaign. I did several cities in a single week. I would fly in and immediately be driven to a TV or radio station or a hotel suite, where I would do back-to-back interviews all day long, answering questions about the previously private mental health issues that had inspired the writing of my debut novel. While such media coverage was a tremendous, life-changing privilege, it was also exhausting, particularly for this introvert whose mental health wounds were still raw and completely untended. And I had no previous media training. I was just thrown on live TV and radio alongside of people who had been doing media for decades. At one point I was seated in an empty room with an earpiece in. I stared at a red dot, while a producer connected me with TV stations all over the country. I did pretty much the same exact three minute interview live via satellite repeatedly for hours straight. No breaks. Hours of hearing many different voices in my ear, while speaking the same exact answers—over and over again. It was one of the strangest experiences of my life. Much to my surprise, my handlers said I did very well. And the more I improved, the more The Weinstein Company pushed for me to do additional interviews.
In the middle of the tour, I remember standing in a crowded airport, talking with my agent via cellphone. I told him everything was coming up aces, but I was extremely tired and worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the pace. Doug said, “I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but this is temporary. Just keep pushing. Opportunities like this one don’t come up often.”
So I kept pushing until the week finally ended and I flew home.
When I walked through the front door, Alicia gave me a big hug, which is when I realized I was literally trembling from exhaustion. It was late at night, so I told my wife that I just wanted to shower and sleep for days. When I got out of the shower and checked my cellphone, I saw that there were multiple messages from The Weinstein Company. Harvey wanted me to immediately—that night—fly to New York City, so that I could do a live interview with Charlie Rose the next morning. A week previous, if you had told me Charlie Rose would be agreeing to interview me, I would have enthusiastically said, “When and where?” But on that night, I was so psychologically and physically spent that I started to dry heave. The promotional part of being a successful Hollywood writer—at least for me—wasn’t what I had imagined. This was not the knowledge I wanted, but it was definitely the knowledge I needed. My grand career plans had smashed into the reality of my mental health struggles. And I needed to do something about it. That would turn out to be life-saving information.
For the writer who emailed me, here is the game: To have a career in publishing, you have to write something that is useful to others.
If your work can make people money, they will flock to you. If you can move a reader, that reader will enthusiastically tell others about your work. If you can educate someone, that person will tell others who need the information your work provides. If you can advance a political movement, the people who believe in that cause will promote your work. If you can entertain people, they will line up with money in their hands.
When pursuing a career in writing, being brutally honest with ourselves about our usefulness can help us learn.
Of course, there can be a great psychological cost for putting career needs above the needs of your soul, which is a story old as time.
And I don’t know that the writing gods are interested in making all writers into careerists.
There is writing. And then there is publishing.
My wise wife tells me it’s important to distinguish between writing as a vocation and writing as an avocation. It’s easy to conflate the two, which causes problems.
Personally, I think writing—for most of us—is a higher calling. It is a chance to go inward. It is a chance to nobly wrestle with who we are. It is an opportunity to learn the truth about ourselves. I have found that education is often painful and that most human beings are not great at enduring pain. Over the course of my life, when it comes to weathering psychological and emotional pain, I’ve certainly struggled. But whenever I’ve been able to endure discomfort long enough to learn, I’ve found it transformative. It is useful. And maybe writing is—first and foremost—an opportunity to be useful to ourselves.
What the writing gods want you to learn is way above my pay grade. That is a sacred transmission between you and the powers that be. But I’m pretty sure we are all programmed to learn about ourselves. Why else would so many of us spend so much time wrestling with all of the above? Why would so many people write when everyone knows it is nearly impossible to make a livable wage as a writer? Why else would you have made it this far into this Substack post?
I wouldn’t use words like ‘simple’ to describe learning from the writing gods. I’d use words like profound and transcendent. I’ve learned to show reverence. Because when I haven’t in the past, the writing gods have psychologically crippled me with writer’s-block, anxiety, and paranoia.
Lately, for me, writing is primarily a tool to help me facilitate the process of learning who I really am. And when I accept who I really am, the pain lessens and the writing improves. Opportunities arise too, but in my experience, those are seldom the ones for which I had originally aimed.
The email I received ended by asking how long the frustrated emailer should keep sending the finished manuscripts to agents, should the person write another novel, should the person persevere and keep believing?
I don’t think I’m the right man to answer those questions. The asker’s heart has jurisdiction.
But I can say this: Getting to know myself more honestly has made me a better writer. My wife will tell you it’s made me a better human being too. Early results seem to suggest that my radical pursuit of self-knowledge has hurt my career. But I’m becoming increasingly suspicious of that narrative and my hopes for the future are steadily rising.
My memoir, Dad, Love Me, really delves into how I arrived at the above conclusions. It’s out July 21, 2026. Click this link to read early responses from New York Times bestselling author Catherine Newman and #1 New York Times bestselling author Wally Lamb. Please feel free to spread the word.
Your man in the Lowcountry,
Matthew
PS - Did you read the January 21st post? It’s 2026: Should You Write A Memoir? (Should You Publish A Memoir?)
PPS - If you respond to this email, your words will be sucked into an internet black hole; I will not see them. If you wish to contact me, please use the information on my website.