Exhale

I started taking guitar lessons a few years ago from a young guy who’s got his own band for which he is also the primary producer. It wasn’t long before he suggested we record some of the songs I’d written, and I was all for it. He could play the instruments I couldn’t, and he taught me a lot about production and how precise your rhythm really needs to be for a track to sound right. Our lessons turned into weekly recording sessions, and by and by I had a half-dozen, and then a dozen songs in the can.

“Time to release an album,” he said to me one day.

“Oh, God,” I said. “I don’t know.”

“It’s easy. You just upload them to this site for free and it distributes them to all the streaming sites.”

“Uh-huh. It’s not that easy, I assure you.”

I loved the songs, but I was a little shy about my voice, and I’d never performed them, never tested them in front of an audience. I had lots of good advice for writers, but I seemed to be having trouble applying it to myself when it came to this supposed album.

He kept on me on about it while we recorded more songs. I had so many now, just leaving them on my computer began to seem ridiculous. More than that, something was incomplete. I knew when a song was done, and I knew when we’d produced it to my satisfaction, but I could feel there was a final step I needed to take. I was, I admit, afraid to take it, for all the reasons we’re afraid to share out work. Yet the work felt incomplete, and the longer it remained so, the more it bothered me.

So, we remastered the songs I liked the most, and after sitting with those for a week, I ripped off the band-aid and “published it.” The Chapel is now available wherever you stream your music. I have no plans to promote it with gusto, and certainly none to tour. Still, somewhat to my surprise, once I released the album into the virtual wilds, I was relieved.

I often remind my students that you have to learn how to finish a story – and not just understanding what makes for a good ending, but knowing how to accept that there’s no more you can do, that it’s time to move on. Publishing, however you do it, is how you really finish something. A piece of art is meant to be experienced by someone other than the artist, in the same way children are meant to leave the house. Why it’s that way, I’m not really sure, but I know what it’s like to hold my breath, and I know what it feels like to finally exhale.

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