Inspiring Light

Because all my writing draws from my own life, and because not much really happens in that life that simply demands I write it down, I spend a lot of time looking at a small moment from a day, turning it and turning it until I find something in it worth sharing. It’s not often that obvious. My common starting point is, “Yeah, that happened.”

Not very inspiring, and I write to inspire. I want to inspire my readers, of course, but primarily myself. I listened to an interview with John Lennon recently in which he described his favorite part of songwriting. He loved putting a new song down on tape for the first time with a band, but it was the inspiration, he said, the experience of the song coming to him, that he found most exciting of all. When he gave the interview, he had just gone five years without writing anything. Then an entire album worth of songs came to him in a matter of weeks.

This sort of random, rare, mysterious description of inspiration was quite familiar to me. It’s born from the notion that I don’t know where it comes from, or why it comes, I just hope it keeps coming and as frequently as possible. The problem with this is I write too often to wait for inspiration. I must find it, which means I must look for it, which means I must turn and turn those moments from my life until I see the light within them.

Or is it in me? It’s hard to tell, because when I find that interesting angle on a moment I’ve lived, something wakes up in me. Whatever it is that awakens is what does all the actual, sharable writing. Oh, how I’ve complained about the boring world, the small and repetitious world, a world, it seems, contrived to put me to sleep. What I called dull and ordinary was instead a moment without its own story, a moment awaiting my alive attention, the only source of light in a darkened world.

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