Write For Now

You’re never going to get it right. Not the way you think you should. Not the way you think someone else has. Reading something you simply adore is possibly where this problem starts. You wouldn’t have changed a word of that story or poem or passage. It was as if it was written for you, answering some question you didn’t even realize you were asking. Now in your mind there exists an idea of perfection against which all your efforts will be measured. To your frustration and disappointment, you always come up short.

Of course, you’ve read plenty of stuff that wasn’t perfect, but was perfectly fine all the same. It didn’t change your life, but you enjoyed it. There were some parts you didn’t like as much as other parts, but that’s how it goes, isn’t it? That’s life, if you’re honest. Some days you feel absolutely dialed in, others you’re drifting and uncertain. Why should a work of art be so much different? Plus – and this is kind of maddening – sometimes other people, even very good friends, love the passages you found only so-so. What’s to be done with that? Why, it calls into question the very notion that there is such a thing as a perfect anything.

Because sometimes you also reread something you loved once when you were younger, when you had different questions, when you had different worries and desires – you reread it, and it doesn’t seem perfect anymore. You try to squeeze the old pleasure you’d once known, but there’s no use. The art didn’t change; apparently, you did.

Which is why you can never get it right. If you’re tuned in, if you’re in that effortless writing zone, you’ll find something that reflects who you are and where you are right then. As soon as you do, you’re changed just a little. Now you have to find the next reflection. That’s as good as you can possibly do, and it’s always satisfying when you manage it, but you didn’t get it right, not in a way everyone will always agree on. The only thing every writer or reader will ever agree on is how good it feels when we find a story we love, whether in a bookstore or our own heart.

Check out Fearless Writing with Bill Kenower on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

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