Known Connection

One of the most important moments in your development as a writer are when you don’t know. You don’t know what story to tell, don’t know what scene should come next, what a character wants – you don’t even know what the next sentence should be. You know you want to go forward; that much you do know. You know you want to write. You know you want to write when you don’t know which story to tell, and you know you want to write when you don’t know how to tell the story you’re already telling.

Yet no matter how much you love a story you’re telling, no matter how inspired you are by it, no matter how grateful you are it came to you when you were just minding your own business, you will spend far more time not knowing what comes next than you will knowing what comes next. You will not know what comes next in the very middle of a sentence, a sentence you nonetheless know belongs in that story. So, what do you do? What do you when you don’t know?

How long are you allowed not to know before you think not knowing is a problem? How long before you feel like you will never know and, if you’re honest, have never known. How long before you feel like a fraud, before you feel dull, uncreative, empty? How long before you contemplate giving up, really giving up this time, because who needs this suffering of not knowing, this journey with no road map, this long, pointless stare into an abyss?

The pain of writing is never from not knowing but from believing we should know. Yes, I love that moment of discovery, when the pieces I wasn’t even aware I was holding come together – and yes, without discovery there would be nothing calling me back to my desk every day. But beyond even that, in that single moment that the story, or the idea, or the word comes, I feel again the connection to the only thing I know I have ever truly wanted connecting to. Not knowing where to go next is my role in keeping that connection open.

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