So Not Easy Being Me in the Third

I'm trying to finish a book I'm writing with the fantastic Seattle based author Rudy Yuly. In the narrative we are writing in third person, which means instead of saying "me" or or "I", which is so ingrained in all of us when we talk about ourselves, I am being forced to say "she" or "Jude". I call myself "Stringfellow" when I think I've used my first name too often. This is not easy.

For the first few days I couldn't get it done at all. I forced myself to think outside of my own head and my own experiences to try and relive or visit the stories that I was telling the world. I tried to get inside my own head as it were, and tell the story from the point of view that would seem personal to the character in the book, but not necessarily so to myself, or the co-author. It helps that I'm not the only author of this book -- it helps that he's there and he's able to see things from a more pure and clean perspective when it comes to retelling a story that didn't actually take place in his life. It's like a dream for me. I'm trying to remember the events, but they don't seem all that real anymore.

When I go back over the things that have happened to me and to my family since we've had Faith it just seems like a bunch of made up stories - - like Forrest Gump or something. Oh wait, if it's Forrest Gump I may actually get a shot at Lt. Dan! Oh, how fun would that be? OK -- here's my dilemma, should I travel down this fantasy road for a while, or get back on the reality train and tell the blog as it was suppose to be? Oh, I hate it when I'm obedient. LOL

Back to the blog we go.

Authorship is a gift I believe. I know it can be learned, akin to playing the guitar, a piano, or even learning the basics in a game of baseball. If you are bent on writing you will write. Some of us are given a gift for it, and other work at it. Like me when I'm picking at my guitar - - I can't for the life of me remember the keys and I don't hold the chords correctly either. I love the instrument and I want to play it more than anything - not actually more than anything I suppose, because I'd rather write. I find that writing is a more natural event for me, and even if I don't have much to say I still talk. I still tell, and I still show off. If I were a classic guitarist like my good friend Edgar Cruz I would be strumming right now and you'd never be able to read what I write, but you could at least hear what I play.

Writing in the third is so hard for me. It's the equivalent of picking up that six-stringed instrument and trying to make it talk to me. Trying to make it tell me what I'm suppose to do to make it sing. I no longer write my fantasies or my dreams out in a journal before I key them into a computer. Times have changed and I have obeyed the times. However, being able to write and feeling comfortable with a new method are two completely different things. I like the challenge - - it makes me realize I'm a bit vulnerable; but at the same time I know I'll often slip right back into the woods I am familiar with and hide deeply beneath the foliage I have lived in and with all my life. My pen is my sword and I am not willing to lay it down just yet -- not when the fight is in me and the need to protect ME...well, her...if we're talking in the third.

I am the only me I could ever be. This remains constant. In every point of view.