Everyone's Story

I met Laurie at the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference this past weekend. She was attending a class I was teaching on how to get over procrastination in which I talked some about my own journey as a writer. I described how I tried for many years to write fiction and then eventually switched to memoir and creative non-fiction, and how raising a kid on the spectrum taught me that none of us were broken, even writers who were struggling to sell their work.

After the class, she approached me and asked if I had ever published something in the New York Times about my son. I said I had. Her face lit up and she began fumbling for words. “Not anyone . . . not ever . . .. I’m sorry, I can’t seem to remember it.”

“No, you’re right,” I said. “I wrote that no one is broken – not anyone, anywhere, ever.”

“Yes! I had memorized that.”

She went on to tell me she had read my essay at the same time her four-year-old son was diagnosed with autism. That he wasn’t broken, that no one was broken, became a guiding principle as she raised him. He shouldn’t be fixed, she often reminded herself and the therapist’s and teachers trying to help him, instead they should learn instead how best to communicate with him. She became a little evangelical about it, taking her message from school to school and even to India when her family relocated. Yet she had only taken my class because she was struggling with procrastination. She had no idea I was the author of that article until I began telling my stories.

It's amazing and beautiful to learn that both the concept and the very words “no one is broken,” which served as the guiding light by which I have led my life the last fifteen years, have served as a similar North Star for someone else. It’s a reminder that publishing our work, however we do it, can have effects far beyond our bank accounts or platform. I also think what brought her to that class had nothing to do with chance; life’s author does not divide its characters into the lucky and unlucky.

It’s also useful to remember she had forgotten who had written those words. She may never have even taken note, since my name was irrelevant. She didn’t need to know who I was to know that her son wasn’t broken. She didn’t need to know who I was to tell other people they weren’t broken or their children weren’t broken. What we write and publish, royalties aside, doesn’t really belong to us.

In fact, if you must know, her name wasn’t Laurie; I can’t remember what it was. But I know I’ll be telling the story she told me for the rest of my life.

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