A Good Year

When I interviewed the novelist Yann Martel, the author of The Life of Pi expressed confusion about those artists who took their own life or allowed their days to devolve into orgies of drug abuse or alcoholism. “Art is so life-affirming,” he said. “Why then do something so against life?”

I couldn’t have agreed more that creating art was life-affirming, but I fully understood the self-destructive habits of the artist once they have put down their pen or paintbrush. Once when I had just begun teaching Fearless Writing and asked the students what the hard part of writing was, one woman stood up and said writing wasn’t her problem, it was the rest of her life, which felt dull and aimless by comparison.

For many years, writing felt more or less like the rest of my life, full of all the same drama and uncertainty and struggle as my time away from the desk. It was great when it went well, but often it didn’t, and isn’t that just like life – full of good luck and bad luck and good days and bad days, and there’s nothing we can do about it because that’s just how it goes. This is not the case anymore. It’s so rare now that I can’t remember the last time I had one of those bad days. Then, however, there’s the rest of my life.

This is a strangely natural consequence. If you’ve been drinking cheap wine and then you get a great bottle, you understand how cheap the cheap stuff actually tastes. It’s tough to go back. However, the rest of my life is not actually a lot of boxed wine compared to the Chateau Margaux of my writing time. In fact, I once had a glass of Penfolds Grange, a highly-celebrated Australian shiraz. It was so celebrated, all I could think when I swirled it in my mouth was, “I’m drinking one of the greatest wines in the world!” Delicious, I said after downing my first taste. Perfect.

My sipping partner that day shook his head. “It’s green,” he said. “It’s totally not ready for drinking.”

I tasted again. He was right. It was awful. I wasn’t tasting the wine. I was only tasting what I thought about it. Unlike wine, all of life is the same grape, the same vintage, the same maker. It is only my thoughts that are sometimes sour and old and better off poured down the drain.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com