Into The Center

There’s a lot in my life I can control. I can control when I get up and when I go to sleep, and I can control what I eat and what I watch and who I talk to and what I say and where I go. I can also control when I write, but in truth I am not in really in control of what write – more specifically, I do not get to choose what I want to write. I can choose to write something I’m not interested in, but it won’t go well. In the end, I can only follow my desire, not direct it or manufacture it.

Every creative person must make peace with this. We are by nature independent. We don’t like to be told what to do. We like to make our own schedule. We enjoy the solitude of the workroom, where our minds are less easily distracted by other people and their preferences. Yet the fuel that drives our creative engine is our unique desire, and our desire is something we can recognize, not choose. It is the one limitation we must accept in our lives. We cannot desire anything or anyone. The natural boundaries of our focus are those people and pursuits that draw our attention as a magnet draws metal.

This is why it can be disheartening to hear people talking about “the market,” this soulless entity whose appetite is fixed forever in what is selling right now. I want to sell what I write, but I don’t know how to write for the market. Even if I wanted to, the market is always a moving target. What is selling now, may not be selling a year from now. The market, after all, is just people. Those people are just like me, curious souls in search of what interests them most.

If you are like me, you may not know or have always known what interests you most. I certainly didn’t. I felt it, but I didn’t know it what it was. I could not perceive it or admit it and or allow it. Thank goodness for those writers and musicians and teachers who shared their work generously, who put it out there where I could find it and see in their stories and songs and teachings what I was looking for in my own life. And now I am doing the same, and so are you. The market doesn’t know what it wants, except that it wants to want something. We all do. We all know how alive we feel when pursuing what we desire most. That pursuit is like finding oneself again and again, a journey right into the center of your life.

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