I’ve been writing, regularly, for almost 40 years now. For the last ten of those, I’ve written, almost exclusively, about my own experiences (specifically, personal essays like the one you’re reading right now). Before that, I wrote fiction, which I enjoyed for lots of reasons, though none more profound than the chance to meet and follow my stories’ characters. When you write fiction, you know your characters are “real” when they begin to say and do things you hadn’t planned; sometimes, they even say and do things against your wishes. This may sound strange if you’ve never written fiction, but I can assure you that is how it works.
Now that I’m writing personal essays, the cast of characters is still my favorite part of my stories. However, it just so happens that the character about whom I write about most often happens to share my name. He’s not me, though. I’m me. The one writing is me: the one who gets up to pour another cup of coffee, answers the door, or checks his email. The guy on the page, doing something I once did, is an invention of sorts. Until I could truly understand the difference, I could never really tell personal stories.
The biggest difference between me, the Author, and the Character–aside from the coffee, doorbells, and emails–is how we look upon suffering. The Character does not want to suffer. He doesn’t want to lose, be rejected, be confused, be hungry or cold. He wants everything to go well. It won’t, however. If I’m telling a story, then something probably has gone wrong. There’s no story unless there’s a problem (a conflict), and the Character absolutely hates problems.
But, as the Author, I love my character’s problems. The problem is where all the story’s heat—the drama and power–lie. The more unhappy my character is–the more hope becomes uncertain–the better the story. As an author, I only care about the story, the gift I hope to give the reader at the end. I can’t worry about my character’s happiness. Moreover, I can’t concern myself too much with what my readers will think about him, even if they naturally mistake him for me, not knowing he’s is a construct.
For instance, they don’t know that I sometimes make things a little worse for the Character than they were, originally. I don’t mean I invent problems. Never! The problems in my stories have to have been real. But, I do leave some stuff out. Every storyteller does. If I included every word I spoke, every thought I thought, every stranger I passed, the stories would be unreadable. Usually, aside from life’s infinite minutia, I also leave out the parts of the story where I wasn’t so worried, where I reminded myself that things would be okay and that I shouldn’t make such a big deal out of everything.
This kind of self-awareness can absolutely ruin a perfectly good story. Fortunately, I’m always drifting in and out of calm and anxiousness. My mood can change as quickly as a thought arrives. So, I leave out the good thoughts during the part of the story where the mood must be dark. I save the awareness, the calm, and the learning for where they belong–the end (you remember these better there). If I mix them into the middle of the story, they easily fall from the readers’ memories. Ultimately, they become mere ingredients in an interesting but strangely unsatisfying “story stew”.
Like all writers, I tell stories because I enjoy it. I like to entertain and inspire people (especially when it earns me an income). But writing personal essays has become the best and cheapest therapy I know. To sit every day and picture this guy named Bill Kenower, who has suffered and complained, doubted and raged, as a character in the storybook of the past, has gradually changed my relationship to what I once called failure–the source of all my shame and regret.
Once, I couldn’t bear to speak of those failures. I would try to tell my stories, leaving out the rejection letters, the lonely hours in my midnight bed, the yearning for validation. Now, I seek out such moments. Not only isn’t there anything to fear there, not only are these the ‘heart’ of every good story, each of those moments, like the character on the page living them, are also fictions of a kind. All my suffering has stemmed from one misunderstanding or another. For instance, a rejection letter meant no one wanted what I had to offer. I told myself I would be happy once lots of people paid attention to me all the time.
What I feared was no more real than a dragon in my garden. The pounding of my heart with anxiety was real enough, though. At the time, my visions of the future revealed a place where nothing I planted grew.
These essays have taught me that my shame is nothing but a story about the past: one that I invented to make sense of what–at the time–seemed senselessly painful. I told myself a story of how my wretchedness was the source of my pain, that I was merely seeing the ugly fruits of my spoiled self and labors. I will carry the pain of those stories until Life retells them in its own magnanimous way:
“Once upon a time, there was an innocent soul, who was taught by his suffering where love couldn’t be found…”
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