An Organizing Force

Back when I used to conduct my interviews in bookstores, I was having coffee with a first-time author after we’d finished shooting. He’d be doing a reading in a bit, and was wondering how many people would show up. He was local, and he’d told as many friends as possible, but he did not seem optimistic about the turnout. He looked around at the shelves packed with books, thousands of them, spines out, waiting for a buyer’s attention, and shook his head.

“I mean how does someone, in the middle of all this, possibly find your book? How can it stand out?”

It was a good question, one asked by authors and publishers alike. Sometimes space on tables at the front of bookstores or aggressive ad campaigns on Amazon were purchased, but most books simply had to be found. It could feel like yours was a grain of sand hoping to be plucked by a curious beachcomber. Hearing him ask it, I found myself thinking about the day I met my wife. We’d both lived in Providence all our young lives, most of it no more than a mile from one another. Though we went to different high schools, her home was only two blocks from my school. She and my sister had worked at the same bakery the summer after my junior year.

Yet it wasn’t until the winter of my senior year that I noticed her in a play at my brother’s school. Surely, we had crossed paths before then. I was always on the lookout for interesting girls, how could I have missed her? She was so immediately interesting to me that night that I felt as if I recognized her, like an old friend I didn’t know had taken up acting. I couldn’t answer why we’d never met; I just knew I had to get to know her, which I did.

I know people and books are different, but I think the way we find anything is largely the same. There is something more powerful than a good review or a clever Instagram post or even the recommendation of a friend at play when stories and lovers are found. I understand how best to harness that force, that energy, when I’m writing, but I know it’s always available. We’ll call it many things, but it has to be love, what moves and organizes every life, and what cannot be controlled or manipulated, only accepted.

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