First Draft

One day when I was sixteen, Chris, one of my best friends then and now, mentioned a song I didn’t like, and, as I was wont to do at that time, I came down pretty hard on it. I didn’t realize as I was going on about how flat and sterile that song was how Chris felt about it. I didn’t notice, that is, until I saw the hurt passing across his eyes.

“Actually, I really like it,” he snapped. “It’s cool and different. The problem with you, Bill,” he went on, “is you’re not very interesting. You don’t like interesting things. All the things you are interested in are predictable and ordinary. The fact is, you’re just an ordinary person. That’s all you are” And he stormed off.

No one had ever called me ordinary or uninteresting before – certainly not someone I liked so much. In fact, given that he and I were aspiring artists, it was about as hurtful a thing a person could have said to me. And yet, that day, I wasn’t hurt. As I watched my friend march away from me, I thought, “He doesn’t actually mean any of that.” I could hear something inauthentic in his voice as he criticized me. It was a like a bad first draft. We never spoke of it the next time we hung out. Apparently, we were still friends and I was interesting after all. In my mind, I ignored what he’d said. It wasn’t real; it was just him trying to make sense of how he was feeling at that moment.

It’s a good skill to have, this ignoring things people say. It’s gotten me far. I’m not so good at it, however, when I’m the one saying things to myself. It’s hard to hear how fake I sound. How wish I were writing what I was saying. When I do, I can look down at what’s on the page, and see it for what it is – a poor attempt to understand the world by making me guilty and doomed. What nonsense. See it and remove it, and it’s like it was never written or said.

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