The Invitation

Sometimes I sit down to write one of these essays knowing I’ve made a note to myself about something I want to explore. I’m always grateful when this is the case. The “idea” is often nothing more than a sentence or two: That time I pitched at a conference for the first time. Scared of agent. That’s usually enough to get me going. The essay might end up being about something entirely different than I first imagined, but that’s okay. All I want is to get started and see where I end up.

More often, however, the legal pad I keep by my computer is empty. I show up anyway, sit down, and wait. I don’t love this part of the game. It’s so much more fun when I’ve got an idea I’m hot on the trail of, or simply weighing what the next best word would be. I like to write, to make choices, to discover, to move and actually do something. This waiting is the opposite of all that. It’s just me, alone at my desk, surrounded by all the things that are of no help to me whatsoever. Those things can be pleasant distractions when I’m not writing, when I’m just being a normal person, but not now. Now I’m waiting for what I haven’t seen, what I don’t know, what doesn’t yet exist.

Like I said, I don’t love this part, except that the more I write, the more I’ve come to understand this waiting is the whole point of the game. It’s why I do it. Not that I would write if it was only waiting, if nothing ever came, if all I did was sit in an old world surrounded by old things. That’s the nightmare version of creativity, the apocalyptic end of it all. How scary stillness seems if you believe you have lost the means of propulsion. It’s as if you see and know the future, and it’s all nothingness.

Until, that is, from that stillness, that quiet, there emerges a single thought. Sometimes it’s one I had before but had forgotten; other times it’s a memory I had disregarded but in which I now see potential. The instant it arrives I remember how this game is actually played and my role in it. Creativity always begins with an invitation. We usually offer it unconsciously, going about our days, our minds wandering and wondering what do next. Other times, however, we must offer it on purpose, and as we do, we’re reminded that there is no such thing as nothing, only spaces cleared for what wants to come next.

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