Here’s why I believe you should absolutely meet your heroes.
Whenever I find myself ensnared by imposter syndrome, timidly questioning the career I chose, a few specific memories bubble to the surface to save the day. I’m quick to remind myself that — to me — writing is far more than a means of remedying financial insecurity. For most young artists, matters of bill-paying and grocery-affording bog down the creative spirit. Worse than that, they divert attention from the true power art holds.
Art connects us, not just to one another, not just to other universes, but to the deepest, darkest, and most complex parts of ourselves.
I write because writing is an endless source of healing, hope, and home. It is freedom, comfort, and self-exploration embroiled into one expansive profession, and on many occasions, it’s been the only thing standing between me and oblivion. Amidst a time when my whole world had turned to embers and ash, my imaginary families reached out from beyond the veil and effectively saved my life.
You can only imagine the exhilaration I felt encountering these folks in the flesh. Theatrical and cinematic adaptations have allowed for such an amazing phenomenon to occur, and I couldn’t be more grateful. They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes, but in this case, I disagree. Uniting with the sweet invisibles who pulled me from the throes of hopeless melancholia was one of the most precious experiences of my life. It’s happened twice, once for stage and once for screen, and there were some surprising differences between the two.
They each produced a lovely duality in which two strange realities existed at once. On one hand, it was an ephemeral reunion with friends I cherish beyond the limits of linear time. On the other, it was like gazing through a window to my own enigmatic, incomprehensible soul.
Willow’s Compass: The Theatrical Experience
In late 2019, Willow’s Compass was put on by the incredible SUNY New Paltz Theatre Department. How this happened was almost as exciting as the production itself. I’ve feverishly studied both acting and writing, constantly juggling opposing passions. Despite their polarity, one being an extrovert’s haven and the other an introvert’s dream, I’ve often found the two to compliment and inform each other. Acting inspires me to write, and writing inspires me to act.
One fateful day, I was scribbling away in my Sacred Idea Notebook, the tome within which every sporadic musing found form in cursive sweeps on flimsy loose leaf. The problem with this particular brain-pouring session was that it was ignited by a burst of imagination sparked in my Acting 1 Workshop. I was meant to be immersed in a scene being performed, but my classmate was so talented, his performance helped me see right into the heart of a character who’d been shy around me for weeks.
I started writing, shamelessly burying my nose in my notebook. After class, the professor pulled me aside, her eyes sharp and determined. I was sure I’d be rightfully reprimanded for my lack of focus, but instead, she said, “Brittany, you’re always writing. Why don’t you submit something to the Praxis Series?” The Praxis Series was our university’s way of helping budding playwrights shine. With a well of allocated department funding, they could put on student work with the same dedication, professionalism, and expertise as a main stage show.
At this point, I’d only ever written short stories and fan fiction. I could hardly imagine myself a real playwright, but this professor — whom I’ll never forget and never stop thanking — believed in me. She believed in me more than I’d ever dared to believe in myself. With a soft nod and a breathless, “Thank you”, I returned to my dorm room. Despite possessing very little confidence, I propped open my laptop, and I began to write.
Eventually, I had a ninety-page stage play on my hands. Willow’s Compass, I called it, the story of a dystopian Earth that has implemented a corrective measure to mend the flaws in human psychology, consequently challenging if it is immoral to program the world into morality.
To my utmost surprise, my university’s Theatre Department loved it. I was assigned a magnificent advisor to help me through edits and revisions, as well as a brilliant team of creatives to begin the script-to-stage adaptation. In just nine months time, Willow’s Compass would take over Parker Theater as SUNY New Paltz’s first theatrical production belonging to the science fiction genre.
Opening night was magical. I’d dressed for the occasion, purposefully clad in an outfit that made me look like an escaped piece of the narrative. As the house lights dimmed overhead, a thrumming vibration surged through my body. A portal was opening right before my eyes, hailed by an eerie, dystopian drone trickling from Parker’s speakers. The first character, Cornelia Thayer, stepped on stage, played masterfully by an actor I’d shared classes with. Though I’d witnessed her performance many times in rehearsals, tonight was different. Tonight, to me, she was Cornelia. I felt like I was uniting with something incomprehensible, the translucent gateway between my world and hers close enough to touch.
The gateway, like a sheet of iridescent glass, only got larger and more powerful as the story progressed. Each of the characters I’d written, once mere children of ink and imagination, were just a few feet away. Through the immeasurable talent and unparalleled dedication of the actors playing them, they’d crossed over the dimensional threshold dividing our realities.
As writers, our characters often embody one of two things, or both of those things simultaneously. They can be lost voices from worlds unseen, friends invisible to all eyes but our own, or they can be shards of our own unique soul, concentrated and distilled into one concise being. The human mind is impossibly complex. Sometimes, to make sense of it all, we create characters to embody slivers of the inseparable self.
In the case of Willow’s Compass, it leaned toward the latter. Cornelia and Willow were built from my visceral desire for rebellion and feral lust for freedom. Briar and Maxwell were my fear, anxiety, and hesitation to stand out from the crowd. Alastor — the villain — consisted of angry, frustrated soul dust confused by the world’s penchant for violence. Even in the story’s worst characters, there were scattered pieces of me. Through writing about them, I’d given myself a safe space to process complicated emotions. Through meeting Alastor himself, I was able to see them on display, and in this cosmic crossroads, this moment of impossible mirroring, I was able to heal.
There may have been dozens of people in the audience, but for those ephemeral moments, I was walking in shared solitude through the catacombs of my own psyche. I was encountering parts of myself lost to the spiral of everyday distraction. It felt sacred, every breath an echoing footfall within a grand, marble mind temple.
When the bows began and the spell was broken, I emerged feeling anew. I’d been united, not just with my cast of beloved mind people, but with harmonizing fractals of myself.
A Perfect Copy: The Cinematic Experience
Four years after Willow’s Compass, I was given the opportunity to meet a new cast of characters from the shadowy recesses of my mind. I’ve already published an article about my experience in film adaptation, but to summarize, it was amazing.
The characters of A Perfect Copy were very different from those in Willow’s Compass. While Willow’s Compass came to fruition through a rapid-fire succession of writing sprints and revision sessions, the world behind A Perfect Copy started taking form while I was still in high school. I’d created — though that feels like the wrong word for it — these folks with no intention to see their story manifested on stage or screen. It was a private world, an island of imagination I’d connected with solely for the purposes of explorative fun.
The characters of A Perfect Copy have always come across more like distant comrades. My laptop and keyboard acted as a liaison between our dimensions. I’d type a thought, and they’d telepathically respond. They’d taken a life of their own, enigmatically independent of me. There were times when I felt I had little control over the narrative, because in this instance, I was but another being in their world, observing and annotating like a misplaced journalist.
I knew these people personally, but not because they were scattered pieces of myself. I knew them because I’d listened to them. I’d heard their whispers over the dimensional veil, came to know some of them as friends, and others as enemies. I’d lived a life alongside them, a writer from another realm possessing an avatar in their home dimension.
In the midst of crafting this proof of concept short film, I felt as though they were taking on avatars in mine. Our actors were some of the most talented I’d ever seen, and they had worked tirelessly to become acquainted with their roles. Dr. Lancaster, who’d once only spoken to me, was now speaking to and through Bobby James Evers. As an actor myself,
I’ve experienced this kind of mysticism before. If a role truly aligned with me, it became an invitation to communicate with someone exodimensional, then become them, briefly, in a temporal collision of worlds.
Still, this was a whole new experience.
Characters who had talked me through some of my most depressive eras, coaxed me beyond my comfort zone, eased my anxiety, and aided my loneliness in times I needed it most… were right in front of me. They were there, clad in the fashion of 2141, and I could speak to them. In an effort to connect more deeply with their roles, several of the actors actually spoke to me directly in character. I don’t think there are enough words available in the English dictionary to express how extraordinary it felt.
How This Changed My Writing, And My Life, Forever
Needless to say, both of these experiences equipped me with the feral courage to dream of more just like them. There was a time when I thought my words would remain within the obsidian fortress of my mind, concealed like secret scrolls of interdimensional knowledge and unhinged self-exploration. Also, to be frank, I simply thought no one would truly care about them.
When Willow’s Compass closed on the third night, I was approached by dozens of people eager to congratulate me and inquire about what was to come. “Will there be a sequel?” “Will this show be available at another theater someday?” “Will you adapt it for film?” I was stunned. I couldn’t believe people — real people — wanted more of my futuristic fever dream.
When A Perfect Copy wrapped production and we timidly released our first trailer, I was hit with text messages, emails, and DMs about the status of the project and the plot to follow. Once again, I was stunned. Willow’s Compass had been a rebellious navigation through my own complex, conflicting, and collaborating emotions. A Perfect Copy was more of a gateway to a world I’d been visiting since I was sixteen. To find out people actually wanted to visit the Year 2141 as I’d conceived it completely baffled me.
Both of these projects required an immense amount of vulnerability on my end, especially when I began to consciously realize what they truly were to me. As artists, we chip off pieces of our own eternal souls, solidifying chaotic light into tangible form with words and colors on a page. Sharing that light means sharing ourselves, highly concentrated or fearlessly unabashed in the longings of the heart.
I knew I could have faced negative feedback, and I did. There were folks who didn’t like what I had to offer, let alone want more of it. There were some who saw absolutely no depth or meaning in my work, and some who didn’t even have a smidgen of fun glancing through that translucent veil between our worlds. This, believe it or not, did not weaken or frighten me.
Throughout both processes, I had an epiphany about the art that I create. It isn’t a product, nor a cry out to be accepted and welcomed into every possible space. In some cases, it is a mirror to my unique, individual, ever-changing, and ever-growing spirit. In others, it is a reflection of the places I want so greatly to explore across the multiverse. It is my desires, and it is my fears. It is my hopes, and it is my despairs. It is all the things I love, and all the things I despise. It is a feral mosaic of me, and that isn’t meant to resonate with everyone.
However, when some do, they really do.
Through both of these projects, I not only deepened the relationships between myself and myself, and between myself and my characters, but I also cultivated new bonds. The artists who brought them to life and the audiences who truly aligned forged instant, lasting connections with me. The vulnerability of art is a very effective way to skip over small talk and rapidly filter out those who don’t resonate. By letting my heart be seen, I opened the door for friendships built on instantaneous sincerity and genuine depth.
All of this taught me that writing is so much more than just writing. It is self-exploration and actualization. It is a vector for priceless correspondence across the cosmos and right here on Planet Earth. It is worth pursuing as a career, because it turns one’s career into a lifetime act of self love and appreciation, as well as a lifetime pursuit of curiosity and connection.
I’ll never forget the way I felt when I met my characters for the first time, nor will I forget the friends they helped me make and the healing they helped me find. It changed my writing forever because it changed what writing is for me, forever. This isn’t a career path; it is a never-ending journey within and without.
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