Special Recognition

I started interviewing authors because I wanted a magazine and, eventually, a podcast, that treated published writers not as names on a book jacket, but as real live people, with all the recognizable fears and doubts as unpublished writers. It was my desire to help demystify the emotional challenges of writing, the same as other magazines sought to demystify the craft of storytelling. That was my goal for my interviews then, and, twelve years later, my goal now. The emotional mastery necessary to create something and share it with strangers requires constant practice and friendly reinforcement.

I know because I had very little mastery over it myself when I started Author, which is the other reason I wanted to interview published writers. I didn’t know any, and I felt it would be useful to get to know as many as I could. I wasn’t actually looking for advice from these writers, though they frequently offered it in the course of the interviews. Rather, I wanted to be in close, physical proximity to someone who was having success where I was not.

My problem, I was certain, had nothing to do with my writing skill, which I had been honing since I was a boy. My problem had to do with my being human. I needed to understand where the challenges of being human overlapped with the challenges of writing, and to know firsthand that all these men and women, the ones who’d sold millions of copies and the debut authors thrilled at the first printing, were just like me.

Turns out they were. They were like me in their relationship to writing, and they were like me also in the way everyone I’d ever met was like me. I admit, I’d always wanted to be special. I felt special – meaning, I understood that there was something distinctly me and about me. This awareness was confusing, however. It was easy to turn it into something it wasn’t. Everyone I knew was distinctly themselves, but what if there was something extra special about writers?

There isn’t. If you had told me this when I was much younger, I think I would have been disappointed. When I eventually understood it experientially, I was relieved. The key to all these authors’ success and to mine and to yours is recognizing one’s own specialness, a recognition that expresses itself in the necessarily unique stories we tell. None of the recognition I have gotten from others has meant anything compared to that first time I truly gave it to myself. When it happened, there were no fireworks or standing ovations, just the comfort of letting myself be what I’d always been.

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