Satisfying Perception

You know how it is when you’re sitting there and you’re rereading your story and you really don’t like it. Well, that opening’s okay, and then the scene at the bar when your protagonist goes on a rant about being sick of craft beers, that was surprising and lively, but the rest . . .. What is this crap? It’s boring. The whole thing feels like a cliché. And the characters aren’t acting like people. They’re puppets formed out of cardboard. To think you wrote this, chose every word of it. Oh, the shame of it.

This doesn’t have to happen. To be clear, you’re going to write stuff that doesn’t work. Or, more specifically, you’re going to write stuff that you don’t like. Someone else might, but someone else isn’t there rereading it. Only you are. You could show it around, ask your friends, “Is this as bad as I think?” Don’t do that. Your friends probably don’t want you to feel bad, so they might just reassure you, which isn’t actually what you want.

What do you want? You want to write something that satisfies you. You want to write something that you would want to read, that surprises and inspires you. That’s all you ever want. Yes, you also want it sell and for other people to like it, but first you want to like it, and the truth is, at the moment, you don’t. That’s okay. The pleasure of writing is finding what you do like. Sometimes you find it right away. That’s nice. But sometimes you find it on the third or fourth or fifth or tenth draft. That’s also nice, sometimes nicer.

I’ve heard it said that the art of writing is rewriting, which is only partly true. There is just as much artistry in the passage that remains unchanged from the first draft if that passage is truly satisfying to the writer. This is all we’re trying to do. The question is what will you do when you read something of yours that doesn’t satisfy. Are you going to criticize yourself? Are you going to tear up the page in disgust? Will you be ashamed of what you’ve done? Maybe if you’re harsh enough you’ll never make this mistake again.

Or maybe you’ll become afraid of ever making a mistake. The lash of the whip burns even if you’re the one wielding it against yourself. Don’t write from fear; it’s a shallow source of motivation. You must feed it with your terrible vision of a future where all that you’ve done comes to nothing, a vision that has no foundation in truth and so collapses without your constant attention. Love, meanwhile, sustains itself. Write from it and toward it and you will be carried naturally by it, relaxing into a reality you don’t have to manufacture, only perceive.

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