Making Reality

I had a great conversation with the bestselling memoirist and self-help writer Martha Beck last week (you can watch it here or listen to it here), in which she pointed out that she writes not to get attention but to give attention. I’d never heard it phrased that way – and by “it” I mean what actually motivates us to write. I agreed, if for no other reason than it completely contradicted what I had once believed were the jewels I craved for my creative crown.

Mind you, I always liked to write, always liked that happy, alive, inspired spark of a new idea blooming in my mind. But I also liked the attention I received when I shared that work. It made what I’d written seem real. At least that’s what I told myself, though it wasn’t even that. I knew it was real the moment I put it down, but somehow I couldn’t quite believe what I knew until someone else saw and acknowledged it, as if my stories were Big Foot, and I was alone in the woods without my camera. Then, of course, there was publishing, the very business of making an idea something physically real, something on the shelf that someone else could read because they saw it and it looked interesting and not because I asked them to read it.

But praise, reviews, contracts, and awards provide no enduring motivation when I am alone at my desk. I may think I want all those things, but when I ask myself, “What could I write that would get me a fat contract?” no answer comes. On the other hand, as I drift around my days, wondering my private wonderings, I will eventually see something I hadn’t seen before, understand something that had until then seemed mysterious. I’ve seen it, though, in the way I’ve seen my dreams, known it as I’ve known my desires, and my first thought is always, “How could I share this?”

Now that’s a question I can answer, though it will take some time. I have to give what I’ve seen all my attention so I can learn what form it will take outside of my mind. I become a loving servant, attending to the story’s needs, learning what it wants to be. How pleasing it is to watch it grow, and how glad I am when I can share it, when someone else can make it real in their minds too.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Everyone Has What it Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt Available for pre-order now!
You can find William at: williamkenower.com