William Kenower, author of Fearless Writing and Editor-in-chief of Author magazine, was the keynote speaker at San Diego State University Writers’ Conference where I was recently honored to speak. And I kinda wrote down EVERYTHING he said, bec it all made sense to me, and was all inspiring and interesting. So with links and thanks to Bill Kenower, I will share the main points of his keynote. Then, even if you weren’t there, you can soar to the heights of your imagination and write with less fear, doubt and delay (Write Without the Fight – Write with Less Doubt and Delay is my primary speaking topic, so this is something I devote my life to, too.)
Bill (can I call him Bill? I know that’s his email moniker, so he either prefers it or uses that nickname to specifically flag strangers’ emails…) made one important point. Don’t think bad. It is painful, fearful thoughts that derail our writing. It is rarely a physical problem, like the pen ran out of ink, or the computer crashed. Doubt and delay haunt us all. In his capacity at Author, he has interviewed many a brilliant writer and assures us, Alice Hoffman says to herself, nearly every time:
I don’t know how to write a book. I’m not going to be able to pull this together.
Alice Hoffman, author Practical Magic and more bestsellers
So, Bill works not to reinforce our doubt, but to help us ease it, right? We lean in, bec he’s about to tell us how to write fearlessly. Bill has a bunch of magic mind tricks for how not to think bad. (Are you leaning in?)
1. Show Me _______________.
We writers live in a real world. We go to schools, churches, stores, games, malls, diners, and we observe. We interact. Our worlds stimulate all our senses. Similarly, our families and friends bombard us with stimuli – expectations, obligations, problems to be solved. All the stuff from the 3-D world can keep us in a reactive frame of mind. We need a generative frame of mind to write something new and interesting.
So, how do we turn it all off? Kenower has a brilliant if simple solution. You sit down to write. You close off outside stimuli – including closing your eyes. And you say or think: Show me _____________________ (fill in the blank with your scene or story.)
Your imagination is better than any movie technology or phenomenon in nature, bec you can imagine anything happening. And when you ask your brain to show you, it will. And voila, you’re in.
Once you’ve entered the world of your story, as Bill puts it, it becomes more real and more important than the clock on the wall, the chair you’re sitting in, the cloud outside your window.
You can write and write until you surprise yourself, even though you’re the only person in the room. Your imagination served up that surprise, and this is a fun day of writing, right?
2. Don’t ask yourself if you have what it takes
Even great writers wonder if they have what it takes. Judy Blume admitted that she was plagued with deep doubt “every time.” From where I sit, that was doubt she channeled brilliantly into Are You There God’s Margaret.
Bill Kenower had a slightly different frame of mind when it came to assuming confidence. What if confidence is simply radical self-acceptance with every single shortcoming, foible, wart and inhibition you possess being 100% OKAY? No one is broken. And in contrast, no one is “better.”
We all have what it takes. I’m not better or worse than anybody.
William Kenower
He arrived at the thought, “confidence seems mean to me.” It is better to be okay, accepting, worthwhile… regardless of your intelligence, wit, talent, height, weight, hair color, skin color, age or education. And that acceptance that bolsters your confident behavior is ascribed to everyone you meet and see. And when we write something brilliant, we might even think, “this isn’t mine, I just found it,” bec humility is comfortable and accepting.
3. Check your work, check your inner critic.
Don’t let anyone else in to your head – just you and your characters, words, dreams, and ideas. Here’s the sneaky snake of a thought that derails a lot of writers: “I wonder what other people will think of it?”
Once that outside world is allowed in, you’ve burst the bubble of the generative mindset and world you created. And you have a critic along for the ride. That person’s pov dogs your every word, sentence and scene, until your story is infected, soured. It’s like vinegar in lemonade. Invisible, but ruinous.
This does not mean you will never look at your work critically. Once you’ve written something (a chapter, a scene, a blog post, an email to Bill Kenower asking if he minds you paraphrasing his speech to your blog readers) you can look it over and ask two questions.
- What did I want to say?
- Have I said it?
4. There is no future or past
Your characters are allowed backstory and foreshadowing. You can paint the picture of their lives for any timeframe you see fit. But while writing, you cannot permit your past or future to creep in.
Thinking about your past is likely to bring on feelings of shame. Thinking about your future is likely to cause fear. Your pain is current. Write from where you are right now. When your mind wanders and you feel shame, doubt or fear, you may not even know what happened. In my experience, I suddenly, and inexplicably find myself searching for a curative snack. Unless you’re actually hungry, the likely culprit is a bad thought.
Center yourself again on the “now.” Focus on your breathing. Feel your feet on the ground. Let the fear and shame go. When you’ve calmed yourself again, return with the “SHOW ME ______________ (fill in the blank)” tool.
5. Remember why you write. Ecstasy.
Once in a while, if you like to write, you’ll accidentally have one of those inspiring, soaring wonderful days of flow. You’ll write all day and love every minute of it. You lose track of time, hunger, thirst and most importantly – you escape your everyday doubts.
The very next day, you want back in, but alas, that heady state of being eludes you. And you can chase that tiger the rest of your life.
Or you can accept it as it happens, and the rest of the time, you just write. Like painting a wall, it is not all inspiring and delightful. Sometimes you just have to fill in the space between the window and the door. But sometimes, when you sit down to paint, er write, it’ll come, summoned or on its own, and you’re reminded why you write. Flow is ecstasy – a deliverance from your everyday concerns, anxieties, and fears.
Ecstasy. It’s worth it. It’s why we write.
We go to conferences to meet our people. But “our people” are closer than we think. Ask me about the Write Without the Fight Club. (1st rule about WWTF Club, is we talk about the fight.)