There’s a story of a master teacher who speaks to his class and asks a simple question: “how do you know when it is morning?”
One brave student rushes in with an answer: “I know when it is morning because I can tell my dog from my cat in the early morning light.”
The teacher rubs his beard in thought but remains silent.
Another student, the smartest in the class, answers the question with confidence. She says, “I know it’s morning when I can see the many shades of green-the dark green of the trees and the lighter green of the grass.”
The teacher smiles but does not say anything. The rest of the class, unsure of the answer the teacher is looking for, remains silent and confused. After a while the teacher says, “You can tell it is morning when you can see yourself reflected in the eyes of another.”
That is exactly why I write: to see myself reflected in the eyes of another. Fiction, unlike other types of writing, is not to inform but to find out. As a creative writer, I often write to make sense of the world. I write to help myself understand life and then to see what I think, what I feel, what and who I truly am reflected in the eyes of another.
Many say that all fiction is autobiographical and in a way it is. As a creative writer, I always leave a bit of myself on the page, and the more beautiful the prose, the more of my soul I have had to expose. Although as a writer I may not have actually lived the experiences of my characters, I do, in some way, know their feelings. I know the rage, I know the longing, I know the passion, and I know the fear. I know that when a reader says, “I loved your book,” he is really saying “I see you and I know you.”
It is the emotional honesty that I seek as a writer and at times that can be very painful. I guess it’s what Red Smith meant when he said, “Writing is easy. You simply sit down at the typewriter, open a vein, and bleed.”
As if this weren’t enough, I once read that it’s the writer’ job not to look away. It is my responsibility to look closely at the ugliness of life. I am also called to look at the painfully beautiful, too. I must pay attention so that I can tell others.
To write well I must continue to open myself in the face of tremendous opposition. I must have the courage to peel away the layers of my heart and expose the vulnerable center of myself because when done right I see myself reflected in the eyes of others. It is then and only then do I know it is morning.
