Thoughtful Service

You may not be aware of this, but if you write regularly, no matter the genre, regardless of whether what you finish is published or not, you’re practicing something that can be applied to immeasurable effect in every moment of your life. You practice it so regularly, it may not even feel like a practice, any more than walking feels like a practice. You figured that out a long time ago; now it’s just how you get from here to there.

I’m referring specifically to choosing which sentences belong in your story and which do not. Every sentence is a thought. Sometimes you write a sentence and like it. It feels lively and honest and connected to the one that came before. Other times, you reread a sentence and don’t like it. It feels clumsy, or it’s not leading you anywhere, or it’s not true. Doesn’t matter why. If you don’t like it, you take it out and find a better one. And sometimes you don’t even need to write a sentence to know it doesn’t belong. You can tell the moment it arrives in your mind. It’s old or dull or uninspired. You dismiss it as quickly as you would scroll past a movie title on Netflix.

The sentences, the ideas, that stay are in service to your story. The ones that are rejected are not. That is the only criteria. You may have figured out how to write sentences a long time ago, but each story is different, and so you must learn anew each time how to get from beginning to end. To do so, you lay down line after line, each connected naturally to the other, arriving, hopefully, at a fully integrated whole by the last chapter or verse.

Then you put down your pen or close your laptop and wander out into the world away from the page. But thoughts are still arriving as regularly as when you wrote. They’ll never stop. What do you do with them? You know from writing there are thoughts you enjoy and thoughts you don’t, thoughts you wish to pursue and thoughts you ignore. Will you continue to apply the same discipline you practiced at the desk, noticing now which thoughts are in service to your life and which are not? Or will you instead serve the thought, as if you could not decide which story to write, which movie to watch, which lover to kiss? Either way, you will go from here to there, along a path you would choose, or one chosen for you.

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