Everyday Courage

Maybe you’re feeling low and don’t have any desire to write. You like to write, you have enjoyed writing as much as you have enjoyed anything, but you feel no enthusiasm for it now. This is not like when you avoided your work desk because you feared what might happen there, feared having no ideas or not being able to express the ideas you did have. This is not like the times you worried about sharing your work and what people would think of it. You wouldn’t call this feeling fear. You just can’t find the interest, the fuel that starts your creative engine.

Losing interest in writing is different than losing interest in other things. You’ve lost interest in plenty of things in your life and it was fine. It was fine that you didn’t want to play that game anymore, or go to that restaurant any more, or listen to that song or hang out with those friends. It felt natural, and while there was some sentimental sadness from the vague idea that certain things should never change, your attention is too fixed upon what interests you now to worry about the past.

This is not how it is with writing. If you’re someone who has always loved to write, losing interest in writing feels like losing interest in life. It’s a hollow feeling, but it is not some death knell you’re hearing. Every time I have felt this way, it’s because my interest has shifted, has evolved, and I am not keeping up with it. I am still trying to write what I wrote before this evolution occurred, and I simply can’t manufacture the interest I once had for those old stories. I don’t like this. I want my engine to keep running and running and running. I don’t ever want to stop.

Yet when I reach these moments, the best thing I can do is get very still. I need a quiet mind to hear what is speaking to me in a new voice. I have to clear away the old stories, the old thoughts, the old ideas of what I am and what I do. I need a blank page and the courage to answer its forever question: What do you want now?

Courage is not such a complicated thing. It is what arrives the moment I stop trying to be anything other than what I am. It was what I felt the first time I wrote, when I didn’t call it courage, when telling a story was just the next thing I wanted to do. It need be no different now that I have told many, many stories. The question the blank page asks has not changed, though I have, a natural consequence of answering its question honestly.

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