News of the World

I wrote recently about having been diagnosed with what turned out, happily, to be a tepid form of melanoma. I wrote about it because that’s what I do. There’s no way I can go through something like that and not turn it into an essay or two or three. I must confess, however, that I do not enjoy sharing what would easily be construed as bad news. It’s a kind of poison, these tales of misfortune visiting seemingly from nowhere. I know that people who love me will worry about me, as I would them, but if writing has taught me anything, it’s that in end, every story I hear is about me.

It's a consequence of humanity’s inevitable and entirely benign selfishness. As artists, we depend on it from our audience. They must live our hero’s journey as if it were their own, seeing it, feeling it, anticipating and worrying and rejoicing along with them. It’s the beautiful thing about us that we can so easily and constantly be transported by the imagination. It’s also why I sometimes find myself wanting to crawl out of my own skin when I’m sitting with a friend who gets on a roll complaining about this or that pain or job or relationship, picturing the world they’re describing where everything wrong is someone or something else’s fault and nothing we do really matters.

I don’t want to infect anyone in this way, leave them worrying about the future, about who will or will not be around to share it with them, or what that mole on their back might portend. It’s why I only told my wife initially. I was feeling too miserable about it at first, which is not a great storytelling frame of mind. But I also know there’s no use fearing what I name unwanted. If I do so, it becomes a tumor of its own, growing in the darkness from which it feeds.

This is why so many of the best stories start here, with the diagnosis, the loss, the rejection. The more unwanted the event, the more necessary is my artistic attention to it. An artist molds the clay, he doesn’t leave it in the same lump he found. It must become something else, something I’d want to share, something that reminds me and anyone who cares to listen that we are not just pinballs being bounced around by a random world, but the flowers that can only bloom when given light.

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

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com