Fearless Writing: Two Questions Writers Should Ask Themselves
It's uncommon: I am experiencing flow in my writing right now. Part of it is due to my confidence plus the interest in the topic I am writing about (instructional walks). But I should also give credit to a strategy I learned recently.
In his book Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write with Confidence, William Kenower shares two questions writers should ask themselves:
What do I want to say?
Have I said it?
Simple enough. Almost too easy, right? So I tried it.
To be fair, the book I am writing is more of a tutorial, a guide for leaders. Still, my efforts to write regularly were hampered in the initial stages of this work.
Why is this? Why do we start a project and then hit obstacles along the way? Kenower attributes this to fear, "fear of what other people think about what I write" (7). For me, I started to question the worthiness of this topic, or if anyone will want to purchase my book. The uncertainty derailed writing sessions before I even got started.
Now I ask myself the original question when I became aware of any feelings of doubt or resistance. I don't fight the fear, but rather understand it for what it is, mentally review the initial and follow up questions, and then continue on. Once a chapter is done, I ask myself the second question, focusing specifically on accuracy for the reader.
Kenower explains why these two questions work:
When you focus on what you want to say rather than whom you want to please, you trigger a translation response. You ask that first important question - "What do I want to say?" or maybe "What story would I most like to tell?" - and receive an answer in the form of a thought, an image, a character, a memory, a smell, an argument. It's not a complete work yet; it's simply a compelling idea. And so you begin to translate what you see, feel, think with your words (55).
In other words, curiosity and wondering about what we will write can overcome our worries about how well we will write. My guess is this strategy will not be a fix-all for future writing sessions. Yet it's a handy tool to have in my writer's toolbox.
How do you and/or your students feel about writing right now? How do you know? Try these two questions and let me know about the results in the comments.