Life and Death

I was 40 and was taking a writing class at the University of Washington with a bunch of other middle-aged writers. Like me, they had jobs and families and children, but unlike me a lot of them were not always finding the time to write. A group of us were standing in the parking lot after class one evening, and one of the students asked me how often I wrote. When I told her every morning, she dropped her head in despair.

“No, listen,” I said. “You have to understand. I’ve always had a job, but I’ve never had a career. For me, it’s always been writing or nothing. So it’s basically write or die. No way I’m not going to do it.”

This didn’t seem to help her much, which disappointed me. I didn’t want my writing habit to leave anyone else feeling worse about theirs. Plus, I wasn’t sure if I was being completely accurate. While it was true that I wrote every day, and it was true that I’d never had a career, I wasn’t sure if it was really true that without writing my life would have no meaning. It did feel that way sometimes, but there were plenty of times, particularly when I wasn’t beating myself up for not having published a novel, that my life felt quite full. For instance, when I let myself enjoy my relationships with my wife and kids and coworkers – or with fellow writing students.

She and I walked together back to our cars. She told me about her new baby and her husband and his demanding job and how she would be trying to get back to work herself in a few months. She wondered aloud how she would do any writing once she was working again. The house was a mess now. If she wrote would her family be living in a pig sty?

“Sometimes being an adult sucks,” she said.

We had reached her car and I told her I knew what she meant. I told her I liked her work and I hoped she stayed with it. She thanked me and said she’d see me next week. As I wandered over to my car, I could feel something nagging at me, the way I’d feel after I left a sentence I knew wasn’t entirely what I’d meant. I climbed behind the wheel and started heading home. It wasn’t so much the writing, I thought, as how I felt when I wrote. That’s what I wouldn’t want to live without. No one would. Strange that I had to make up this life and death story about writing, when writing was just another expression of life itself. 

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