Never Wrong

When I’m writing along at a reasonable clip, I do not always notice the time I spend choosing one word over another, or deciding which direction to take a sentence or a story. If the way seems clear, the words don’t feel like choices so much as footpaths I’m following. Of course, sometimes I cannot see the way forward and I must pause, taking as much time as I need to choose between words or ideas.

Whether you just throw stuff down and return later to fix the mess, or you’re like me and prefer to wait, at some point we all must choose what feels like the right word or the right story. However we decide, we must learn to tell the difference between right and wrong. Of course, in storytelling, what’s right for me might be entirely wrong for you. I know this is true intellectually, but I don’t usually think about everyone’s separate journey when I’m writing. My attention is on finding my truest, clearest, most-right way forward.

This choosing, this ability to recognize the right way, is so foundationally important for any writer—is, in fact, required if we hope to thrive in the world of publishers and readers—that it’s easy to get confused about right and wrong. Thriving starts feeling like surviving, and now right and wrong can become life and death. To be wrong is to be humiliated or to be condemned to a prison cell of failure.

Now fear can creep into those quiet moments when we can’t see the way forward. Instead of choosing, I judge. I want to be right about something, and I think, P decide, “I won’t find the way.” And I’m right! If I doubt I’ll find the way, I won’t. If I judge myself as incapable, I am incapable. The doubt and judgment were summoned to protect me from the shame of being wrong. If you choose nothing, you can’t choose wrong.

Yet I have chosen “wrong” many times. I have written entire books that were wrong for me. The book I have coming out in June was first written in an entirely different form and was sent out to publishers all around the country. It wasn’t until they all said no that I saw what the book wanted to be. In its own way, that “wrong” book brought me to the “right” book. It was a long journey, but now that I’m here, I don’t mind.

There are no actual wrong choices. Sometimes we simply have to write stories we don’t want to write, or marry people we don’t love, or work jobs we don’t enjoy, to learn how to choose the right stories, relationships, and jobs. If I can remember this, it takes the fear out of the choices, as every step I take leads me, either directly or indirectly, where I want to go.

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