An Act of Kindness

I was taking questions at the end of a class years ago when a gloomy fellow at the back of the room raised his hand. “My problem with writing,” he said, “is the selling and marketing of my stories. I don’t do this to prostitute myself.” It was a strong take, to be sure, but I understood his reservations. I waited tables for many, many years, and if you had asked me at the time, I would have told you that the only reason I did so was for the money. During that same period, I wrote stories for which I was not paid. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but the difference between what I was willing to do for free and what I wasn’t seemed significant to me.

Though maybe not as much as I originally thought. I’ve never visited a prostitute. Whenever I encountered one, I found their hunger and desperation a little frightening. Everything about them seemed sad and unsafe - a natural consequence of bringing money into what ought to be one of the purer human expressions of love and desire. Yet one evening as I stood at a street corner waiting for the light to change, and a young woman sidled up next to me, sizing me up with her jittery, feral glances, I could still feel beneath all the weird, unnatural, transactional intent, her normal, unending humanity – what always exists in us whether we acknowledge it or not.

It was there too when I was counting my tips at the end of a shift, there when I hoped my new tables were twenty percenters and not those tight, fifteen percent misers. All that thinking about money, money, money still couldn’t cloud completely when someone thanked me for taking care of them and I realized that meant as much as the cash they’d slip into the check folder. There was the kindness between us, as common as touch, and our only real currency. It’s hard to keep track of when your bent on survival, but it’s there just the same, the only means by which we can share what actually matters to us.

Perhaps you don’t see your stories as acts of kindness. Maybe you just want to write something cool, or funny, or sexy. That’s fine, but in entertaining your readers, you’re reminding them what they care about most – and it’s never money. Love, creative desire, and compassion sustains us, feeds us, gets us up in the morning and promises us rest at night. It makes little sense, but it’s true just the same, just as stories can only fully be understood as you’re telling them.

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