The Formula

I have a client who is a very successful standup comedian. He came to comedy organically, almost accidentally, and has been doing it for ever-larger crowds for almost thirty years. Like all standups, he’s a writer. Sometimes he writes his jokes with a pen, and sometimes he just paces around saying his ideas aloud to get the rhythm. Whatever works.

Obviously, he doesn’t need my help writing jokes. He came to me because he’d like to write personal essays and poems. He once took a four-year part time novel writing class and wound up hating it. He didn’t like the formalized structure of it all and came to understand he wasn’t really a fan of fiction writing. He’d also used Peter Elbow’s free-writing techniques and Julia Cameron’s morning pages, but tired of these. He prefers staring out a window with a cup of tea, waiting for an idea, and putting it to page when something good comes along.

Still, he told me recently that he’s always looking for the perfect formula, those rules that will guide him toward artistic fulfillment. He joked that he’d become addicted to writing books, looking and looking for The Answer that will settle this for him once and for all. It’s how he found me. He shared this when I talked about how, in theory, I have a kind of formula for these essays, that I’d settled on a pattern that I was comfortable repeating. I didn’t tell him what that pattern was because it would be useless to him and anyone, I think. It’s specific to what I do. Also, it’s not the actual the answer he or anyone is looking for.

You see, he'd already found the formula: Looking out the window. That’s it. Of course, he looks out the window, but you might go for a walk, or sip a cup of tea, or doodle on a legal pad. There’s no one way to get into the frame of mind every creative person must enter to do their work. It’s a kind of deliberate daydreaming, the true portal to every writer’s genius. It’s true for me, and it’s true for him, and for every single writer I know.

I understand this is not the sort of rule most of us are looking for when we’re trying to crack the writing code and finally have the kind of success we desire. Yet it’s the only rule that is true for absolutely everyone. Yes, you must learn your craft about story structure or realistic dialogue or whatever applies to what you write. But those guidelines are useless by themselves, are merely tools you’ll lift once the dreaming has begun.

Check out Fearless Writing with Bill Kenower on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.