Active Waiting

I love when writing is going really well, when I’m cooking along and the sentences are flowing easily one into the next. When I wrote fiction, I loved when the characters talked on their own and did surprising things and I felt like I was chasing the story to keep up with where it was going. When I switched to essays, I loved when I saw my past as if for the first time, or when it felt like something wiser than myself was feeding me new ideas.

This is the experience that drew me and, I’ve come to understand, all writers to writing, why we like doing it. It’s the actual writing that most writers like, which is to say when you’re putting words onto the page, when you’re in Flow and being carried forward by a force stronger than you. How alive and connected you feel just then, how on purpose, how happy to be on earth and getting to do what you’re doing.

Of course, a certain amount of my writing time is spent not putting words on the page, when I am sitting, sometimes with my fingers poised over the keyboard, sometimes with my hands in my lap, staring ahead at nothing, waiting. I used to fear these times if they went on too long, fear I had reached some end, fear they were indicative of something lacking in me. No more. I understand that these moments are as necessary and as a part of writing as when the words are coming. I can be in Flow whether I am typing or not.

In fact, the more comfortable I have become with writing’s necessary waiting, with resting in not knowing what will come next, the more I have to come to see these moments as the most important part of writing. I am never more aware of my unbroken connection to the source of ideas and inspiration than when I sit without fear or judgment within the stillness that is as alive and creative as the forward momentum of the story. It is in then I perceive the wholeness and integrity of life, a quiet that reminds me I am more than what I have done or will do, that I am always complete and always expanding, and never for one moment alone.

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 available for pre-order now!
You can find William at: williamkenower.com