Adult Writers

If you’re a writer, every time you sit down to work you choose – whether you acknowledge it or not – to face the unknown. That’s the only place you’ll find your story. I know it doesn’t always feel that way; even if you don’t know what’s going to happen next, there’s some part of you that senses what the story wants to become, even if you can’t yet see exactly what that will eventually look like. It’s rather mysterious, but that’s a big part of writing’s allure, and so there you are each day, both knowing and not knowing, a combination necessary to be guided through the serial discovery that is creativity.

Then, of course, there’s the rest of our lives. As adults, we want to know what’s going to happen next. We want to know the weather and how long our flight is and who’ll win an election and if something will sell. We want to know because that’s where safety and security lies. When you’re a kid, your parents, in theory, are in charge of your safety and well-being. They feed and clothe and house you and remind you that everything’ll be fine. They don’t want all that pressure on your little shoulders.

Eventually, however, the job of your well-being falls to you. It has to. You don’t really want someone holding your hand through the rest of your life. You want to know you can take care of yourself in every sense. Unfortunately, it can consume most of your attention, this business of survival. It’s dreary and uninspiring, but the alternative is wholly unappealing. It’s why writers sometimes don’t write. How will it help them survive? We’re not always sure.

The problem is that once you’ve created on purpose, once you’ve sat down and deliberately faced that blank page and taken the electric journey of discovery, you know the difference between simply not-dying and actually living. It’s hard to accept one if you’ve experienced the other. Such is the tension we all live with as creative types. And such also is the very tension that drives our stories, these tales filled with danger and trouble, yet pulsing with the quiet knowledge that living isn’t stasis, isn’t holding tight, but is forever the act of discovering what comes next.

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