The Ticking Clock

I have a client who sold her first novel before she was thirty. It was a literary novel and it did very well in Britain, where she lives. It was well-reviewed, had good sales, and left her agent and publisher eager for her next. That next book is yet to be delivered. My client, I’ll call her Sophie, feels a clock ticking in her mind. She wonders what’s wrong with her, why she isn’t finishing anything, and if she even has a functioning imagination.

Such are the questions that trouble her mind throughout her busy day and when she sits with an unfinished scene and no idea where it wants to go next. What’s wrong with me? It’s a brutal question, one I’ve asked myself from time to time. The answer is always the same: nothing. Unfortunately, that doesn’t satisfy the pained part of us that believes we need fixing. If there’s nothing wrong with us, why are we suffering so? And why the hell can’t we finish this scene?

Writing requires discipline. Yes, there’s the discipline to sit at the desk every day, to rewrite our stories until they are truly finished, to submit even after rejection. But the real discipline necessary for this work is choosing not to think the kind of thoughts that are incompatible with creativity. They are tempting, these thoughts, arriving disguised as helpers, doctors determined to name your malady and write their prescriptions. No medicine, however, can cure a disease that doesn’t exist. All we suffering writers need to do is keep our focus where it belongs, away from questions that have no useful answer.

But focus is hard, said Sophie as we discussed her challenge. It’s true, I suppose, but so what? Everything is hard the first time to you try to do it. Then it gets easier. Plus, hard really just means learning is required. Learning takes patience. The ticking clock in Sophie’s mind, if it’s like the one I’ve had to listen to over the years, interferes with our natural patience, what inherently allows us to see and find and understand what is new. It knows there’s always plenty of time, that life and creativity doesn’t really end, they just flow and flow into the next thing.

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