No Doubt

In my interview with Steve Almond, the author of the recently released Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow talked about how writing has taught him to “outlast his doubt.” He went on to describe how he’d had quite a few doubts in his life, particularly around novel-writing, for which he’d known only failure for many years. Eventually, he “gave up,” decided he didn’t have to be a novelist, that he’d written many other things and they were just as valuable – and that was when the protagonist to All the Secrets of the World arrived in his imagination and, he explained, he didn’t so much write the book as followed her until he’d finished this bestseller.

His is not that unusual a story. I’ve known many artists, myself included, who’ve had to give up to find success. Yet we aren’t actually giving up our dream. It may seem so. If you’ve believed that success will only be achieved through a kind of relentless, grinding effort, as if you will get what you want if you just push a boulder far enough and long enough – then doing nothing will certainly appear to be giving up. But doing nothing does have its appeal, doesn’t it? Especially when what we’re doing isn’t much fun. But do it we must, if we’re to get what we want!

Almond, however, mentioned outlasting his doubt. I’ve doubted plenty, and in my experience, it’s anything but a passive activity. I must choose to think, “What if I can’t do this? What if no one likes it? What if it goes nowhere?” It feels lousy to think it. Normally, when something leaves me feeling lousy, I stop doing it. Not with doubt. I’m being realistic, asking practical questions. These questions, though, require effort, for everything in me wants to believe I can, and they suggest I can’t. In this way, the struggle to doubt can begin to resemble the “hard work” I believe is needed to succeed.

Until I give up. It’s all just too hard. I don’t like it. I don’t want to do it. I give up and sit down and do something fun and easy. Having and doing nothing is better than a miserable something. Except there is no such thing as nothing, and by and by, into the space in my mind formally occupied by doubt and effort, a new idea arrives. It arrives on its own, with no help from me. It arrives when I’m sitting with a cup of coffee, or going for a walk. It arrives and now I have something I want to do, and the wanting needs no effort, for to doubt it would be like doubting life itself.

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