The play knew before I did.

In 2002, I wrote a play that knew what the story was long before I figured it out. It became the most profound lesson about how creativity works I ever learned.



The play was about a modern day American revolutionary.

It opens on the morning of his execution. An older lawyer arrives to offer him a way out of death. If the revolutionary will write a formal statement declaring he was mentally ill when he committed his crimes, he will receive a new trial with a guaranteed stay of execution.

20 pages in...

While writing the play, I got to page twenty when the revolutionary asked the lawyer if he thought his actions made him a terrorist. The lawyer responded, “I think your actions are a national embarrassment...and hideous mark on our family name.” I didn’t think anything of it. 

Until I read it back to myself.


Then I was stunned.

Whose father is it?

“Oh My God,” I thought. That isn’t his lawyer. That’s his father!

Wait!  That’s MY father! And the other character is ME!

Good God! I’m writing a play about my relationship with my father!


The play knew it before I did. But once I discovered it, I suddenly knew what I was really writing about and the structure unfolded effortlessly. Ever since then, I am always on the lookout for the clues I am leaving myself.

Often, the act of creating it is the act of discovering it.

As a Creative Coach, I work with clients to help them see their creative work as a  dream they are having, full of the personal, mythological, and archetypal puzzle pieces that make their individual experience universal. Together, we pay attention to the clues, seeking to understand what the work reveals not only about themselves but also about how it connects to a world in urgent need of their voice.