The Good Stuff

I was talking to a friend a few years ago who was hard at work on his memoir. He’d written a couple other books that were more academic, and so this was his first purely narrative project. He was loving it. He gushed to me about the pleasures of finding the right word, of stringing enough of those words together to form surprising and interesting sentences. “Do you ever find yourself wondering: Did I write that?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said. “That’s always the good stuff.”

“It’s just so great. I can’t understand people who say they get writer’s block. Just sit down and write. It’s that simple, isn’t it?”

It was that simple, but only in the same way quitting smoking is simple if you just don’t smoke anymore. I started trying to explain this, having just written a book about it, but I could tell he wasn’t in the mood to hear about how some people make complicated what he found easy. Also, I sensed he was in the honeymoon phase of storytelling. I knew there were a few marital crises coming his way, and I wasn’t going to ruin the party in his mind. So, we talked some more about how great writing was, until we ran out of steam on that.

I was driving him home, and we were only halfway there. We had just come from a gathering where a mutual friend spent a good hour complaining about her ex-husband. “That was tough listening to her, wasn’t it?” he said.

“Oh, my God, was it ever,” I said. “Boring, for one thing. Complaint is so boring. I just kept thinking how you have to take responsibility for your life – for your whole life. You just have to.”

“Well, but sometimes there’s nothing you can do. Sometimes you’re not responsible for the problems in a relationship. You do what you can, but then it’s just the other person.”

I looked over at him. My mind was alive with all kinds of thoughts about responsibility and relationships and personal power. There was an alarm in my head telling me to let this drop, but I ignored that alarm. I had something to say. So, I started saying it, but my friend did not agree with my theories on responsibility and relationships. He did not agree at all. I was just going to point out how short-lived many of his relationships had been when I heard the alarm again and shut up. Fortunately, we were just about to his house.

I pulled up to his door and said goodbye and told him to keep writing, and he said he would and thanked me for the lift. I drove home filled with things I hadn’t said or wished I’d said, filled with essays I knew I would write. But first, I’d have to complain to my wife about how completely I was disagreed with. Listening to me, you might not have guessed I was describing one the best, most productive, most creative conversations I’d had in a long time, the kind of conversation responsible for the good stuff.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write With Confidence.
You can find William at: williamkenower.com