Aug 10 2008
Multiple Personalities
I was watching a trailer for a show on NBC…unfortunately, though I can remember the premise, I just had to look up the title (doesn’t bode well for the show, I’m afraid): My Own Worst Enemy. It’s about a man who has two identities…one a mild-mannered dad, the other a contract killer…only neither side knows the other side exists.
Now, as implausible as that sounds, there are times I wish I had this same ability–not to be a serial killer, mind you (I detest violence more than most people)–but so that I could step outside myself for a while and pretend to be someone completely different. I’ve spoken before about my own fear of being awful holding me back, about my internal misgivings. To fight them, I’ve intentionally created situations where I must do something in a public way. I was painfully shy, even until I went to college, so I took speech my first semester…and I pursued a degree in teaching. I joined the theatre group, and auditioned (oh, so many nerves!).
With my writing, although I am deathly afraid of rejection (deep down), I intentionally put myself out in public (this blog is part of that process) to get used to the fear, to master it. With my piano–and I have only been taking lessons since March–I have also forced myself to perform, and the nerves I’ve felt can only be described as one level below debilitating (and two weeks from today, I will be playing piano at church–for the entire congregation–EEK!!). I force myself to show others what I’ve been painting. I force myself to sing at church. Each time I do something like this, my nerves are terrible. But I resist the urge to run out of the room screaming (and thank God I’m not a fainter).
“Why put yourself through such misery?” one might ask. Yet I know people with more skill than I, with more talent, who cannot bring themselves to perform publicly. What’s the point of having the talent if you are too afraid to share it?
Therefore, I continue to push through. I send out my manuscripts and smile through the rejections. I sing at church, knowing that nerves make my voice shakier than it was during rehearsal. I paint and let people look on, knowing my hands are shakier as a result. I let people read my stuff, dreading the, “It’s okay, I guess” response, or, worse still, “I just don’t get this.”
So, am I brave? I don’t see how that’s possible, when I am filled with so much fear. Perhaps, I hope, if I keep trying, the fear will go away.
But I don’t think it will. But its effect on my will lessen, with time.
I find that writing can help with that in another way, as well. If you’re the type who really gets into writing your characters–not necessarily total immersion, but certainly reacting as them and not as you to things that happen around them–and you’ve got a character with qualities you want to emulate, you may want to consider trying to get into character for them in situations that aren’t just sitting down to write them. I’ve done it a few times, with one of my game characters, reminding myself that that’s still my mind in her and trying to bring forth her reflexes; it works pretty well for me.
Funny, ravyn and Stephanie, how your two comments show me more of who I am. I don’t think I’m as sensitive to negative comments as I might be, Stephanie, and I think it’s because, like ravyn, I lose myself a bit in the characters, yet maintain a distance.
It’s rather like when I act, on the stage. I become oblivious to the audience, for I slip into the life of the other person, the character I have control over…yet the character is both ME and NOT ME…so if someone says they don’t like the way the character does something, I can step back and look at it, and think, yes, that doesn’t really fit her, does it? or No, I think she’s on target.
It’s the same with my writing. I am drawn into the characters, into the situation. I am fascinated by them, and they spur me on to keep writing about them. Yet when someone critiques the work, I am able to step back and look at them pretty logically. They are OF me, but they are NOT ME.
Not sure that makes any sense to anyone else, but it works for me. I find, often, that criticism helps me pinpoint the problems–problems I knew instinctively were there, but couldn’t find because I was too close to the writing.