The Magic In The Mirror

When I was in college, I studied playwriting. One semester we all wrote one-act plays. Then we critiqued them. After one student received a brutal criticism from a classmate, basically asking why he bothered to write it, my professor said something that I keep thinking of every time I start to write. He said, “Anything that helps us understand the human condition is worthwhile.” When it came time to critique my one-act, a spoof on Romeo & Juliet that was nothing like the usual soul-searching stuff of college playwrights, the silence was deafening. No criticism, but no attaboy either. Just silence. Did they like it or hate it? I’ll never know. I have to say it was funny and the audience laughed, so maybe that’s enough.

I didn’t write for some time after that. When I finally did get around to it, I wrote a children’s book under a pseudonym, the ultimate hiding mechanism. But it has some messages within the story, even if they’re just gentle observations. At this point, there is still a lot I don’t understand, but I’m finally ready to explore in a way that perhaps in my younger days would have made me more dismissive, less curious and persistent than I am now. I think my professor’s statement has continued to be my guiding light, my true north, if you will. Maybe it always has been.

Exploring the human condition is a mirror I hold up to the world as well as myself. Let’s take my first novel, Conviction. The plot is a conglomeration of many stories my dad shared with me about his work as a trial expert in criminal cases. The characters are made up. The location is a fabricated small town. The scenario and plot twists are all products of my imagination. But the story that they weave together is quite real. It could happen just that way, even though it didn’t (at least that I know of).

In close-knit communities, news, especially lurid news, travels fast. People make snap judgments. And in communities of every size, neurodiverse people face preconceived notions about them that are hard to shake, even when they’re flat-out wrong. People in positions of authority who depend on reelections to maintain their status and power can be motivated to manipulate the truth, the media, and people’s emotions to sway voters in their direction. So it’s no surprise that, even in a world of make-believe, the story of two people caught in a firestorm not of their own making is quite believable.

Beyond the world I invent, writing holds a mirror up to myself. Who am I to think I have something to say that will entertain, educate, or inspire someone else? What makes me someone worth believing or even reading in the first place? I wonder this constantly. And, for many years, it actually kept me from writing, the thing I’ve most loved doing ever since I was old enough to put words on paper.

Now after having many other professions, I’ve held up the mirror that tells me I should be writing. Really writing. Not reports or contracts, but real writing, with heart, like I used to do before I became afraid that I had nothing to say worth reading. And that mirror says, “You’re old enough, you’ve done enough, it doesn’t really matter what other people think anymore. You have to live with yourself. Can you live with yourself if you don’t do that thing you really love, regardless of anyone else’s opinion?”

For me, the answer is no. I’ve lived a full life and I have a lot of ideas. I’ve got decades of note cards, outlines, half-written novels and plays, personal growth blueprints, script treatments, and more. I’m not willing to continue keeping them inside when I’m bursting to share them with others. It may have taken a long time, with only drips and drabs coming out over the years in my small attempts to be true to myself.

I guess I’m finally not afraid to look in the mirror to see not just who I am but who I can be, even as a late bloomer in the field I love. The mirror is making me do it.

What’s the thing you’ve been holding off on or telling yourself you’ll get to one day? I’d love to know so please share it in the comments.