Problem Solved

The first book about writing I read was Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. Technically, this is a sort of memoir in short stories about his time in Paris, but as that was also the period when he became a professional fiction writer, Hemingway spends a fair amount of time describing how he worked and his theories about life and creativity. In one story, he recounts how he was having some personal difficulty, retired to his workroom, wrote for a few hours, and when he put down his pencil, the problem, whatever it was, did not seem like a problem anymore.

“Work,” he wrote, “solves everything.”

I was a Hemingway fan, but reading this, I immediately thought, “That’s bunk.” Nothing solves everything. Though, I conceded, it was a nice idea that this thing we love to do could soothe all our worries and answer all our troubles. Worries and troubles were much on my mind then; I had plenty of them even though I worked faithfully every day.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to agree more and more with old Papa. First, Hemingway didn’t say publishing contracts or money or Nobel prizes solve everything; just the work itself, doing the thing you like to do. More importantly, however, is my understanding of problems themselves. When I first read that book, I wanted my problems, my doubts and fears, to go away completely and forever. If a problem could return, it wasn’t solved.

Yet so often I have sat down to work with this or that niggling at my heart, fallen into the story I wished to tell, and emerged two hours later with my heart troubled no more. My issue, writer-to-writer, was with his choice of the world “solved.” Nothing had been solved. Nothing had been understood or completed. The problem simply didn’t exist anymore as far as my heart and mind were concerned. In fact, if I’m honest, it’s as if they never existed at all, the troubled time before I worked like a dream from which writing had awakened me.

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