So clever to have different alter-egos assigned different purposes! Thanks for this prompt, Jillian. ✨ I’m going to take a closer look at my internal conversations and see how I can experiment with “fictional” alter-egos in them. When I’m writing, I often ask (imaginary versions of) my favorite authors for advice -- one advises me on tone, another on plot and characterization, and several others on substantive / content questions. But, of course there’s ambiguity about whether their guidance is what the actual real human versions of the authors would say if I met them in the world outside my imagination. Playing with fictional alter-egos is such a fun idea, and seems like it would be useful for taking ownership of your own voice and authorship. (And it also seems like it could be a useful exercise for developing fictional characters for storytelling purposes!)
Gillian, your wonderful post made me realise how much I wish I could transform all my anonymous Substack readers out there -- if anyone is actually reading my newsletter, it's hard to know! -- into a collective version of Paul McCartney's Mr Luigi, friendly and benign and easy to please with my imperfect efforts. The solution, as usual, comes from my dog Freddie: "It's okay, I'm just writing this newsletter for Freddie, and he loves everything I do!"
Nov 13, 2023Liked by Margy Thomas, Helen Sword, Jillian Hess
This prompt is what I needed to hear and to call it an alter-ego is so fitting :)
Like you, @Jillian, I'm always motivated to just pick up a pen and write down my reactions to a special line or quote that really stood out for me. Just a knee-jerk reaction and the writing flows and of course, it doesn't sound academic, but it does facilitate getting in the flow of writing - even if there's a lot of editing to do afterwards. The anxiety I feel about writing when we seemingly delegate the work to our alter-egos help remove the fear of judgement that comes with my imposter syndrome.
Nov 13, 2023Liked by Margy Thomas, Helen Sword, Jillian Hess
This is so fun and helpful! (I didn’t even know sir McCartney paints lol) I sometimes imagine myself as my own grad students and try to direct myself out of conceptual and writing problems. Found that really helpful and facilitated some important breakthroughs. I am an alright supervisor I guess!
Me neither, had no idea he paints! It's 10.20pm on Gadigal Country (aka Sydney) and I have a burning curiosity to Google Sir Paul McCartney's art work!
Nov 13, 2023Liked by Margy Thomas, Helen Sword, Jillian Hess
I write with quotes in my morning pages but not academically. Definitely something to try out.
I've been playing with four draft stages, ugly, messy, organized and polished. So I think I'm going to work with this instead:
Paige (aka ugly draft) - - she just needs words on the page.
Johnny (aka messy draft) - - this is in honor of the colleague with the messiest office I've ever seen - complete chaos. But there in the mess was a picture of Johnny Cash and a detail amongst the mess that I hadn't noticed.
Rory (organized draft) - - Rory Gilmore always seemed to have a plan, even when she got into a scrape, someone who always had a bit of a way out. To get from messy to organized, I need a bit of her vision.
Violet Crawley (aka polished draft) - - as prim and proper as academic writing can be but perhaps some acerbic wit and zingers could be hidden amongst the APA drudgery?
I've been trying to touch a section in each stage, most every day. But what fun instead to talk to Paige, Johnny, Rory and Violet every day!
Oh, what a wonderful idea to come up with different alter-egos for different stages of the writing process. I also love that your writing process has such discreet stages. I wish I could say the same for my process!
Nov 13, 2023Liked by Margy Thomas, Helen Sword, Jillian Hess
this is brilliant--it makes the idea of stepping away from your anxiety so concrete, fun, and also spreads the labor around! If one AA isn't up for the job that day, you have several others you can call upon. I think mine would be the person I turn into when I got to medical appointments with my aging parents. While I usually am pretty conflict avoidant, I am extremely protective and not at all afraid to be assertive when it comes to my parents' health care. That AA could and would put anything on the page. Jillian, I really appreciate this prompt. Margy and Helen, all the contributors are so lovely, I wish we could have a Coaches Party as part of the #AcWriMoment!! Next year? :))
Thank you, Michelle. And I love turning to your personal life to access different aspects of yourself. It's so much easier to advocate for people we love than it is for ourselves (or, at least, I've found that to be true)! And a Coaches Party would be so delightful!
Nov 13, 2023Liked by Margy Thomas, Helen Sword, Jillian Hess
This makes me think of the avatars that companies like Google comes up with when editing shared documents or when you access their programs and services without logging into your account, like Anonymous Unicorn / Aardvark / Llama, or one I only discovered recently, GlaringIndulgence43 (apparently my username in Google Play?) which has an avatar of an orange unicorn who seems to be in a trancelike state, and most famous of all, AcidicVermin9, created by another program, perhaps a game? I’ve lost track long ago, but I do use it as my X/Twitter username. So I already claim some of them as alter egos. I also can find ideas from, of all places, Tumblr, where users create all kinds of user names while “hiding” their public identity—they do this to “let loose” their true identity / alter ego. So now all I need to do is harness these identities and break out of my creative slump! I may come up with a three-way interview between me and my alter egos and see what I come up with!
Nov 20, 2023Liked by Margy Thomas, Helen Sword, Jillian Hess
This is brilliant!! I absolutely love the idea of creating alter egos, I also had no idea that Sir Paul McCartney was a painter. 🤓 This concept will allow me to break down the daunting research process into smaller steps. 🙏🩵
Nov 14, 2023Liked by Margy Thomas, Helen Sword, Jillian Hess
OOh, this is lovely. I've written before about the necessity of getting your harshest critics out of your head when writing. You are definitely not writing for them! I've written about replacing that audience (as the Mr Luigi tactic does), but I also like the idea that there are multiple writers with their own techniques. (I'm going to add this as a link on that harshest critics post.)
Gillian, thank you so much for this. You have reminded me about something I wrote one summer when I was on a Greek island, surrounded by blue sky and sea but feeling scared and not good enough, at a real crossroads in my life.
One morning, in my notebook, I was visited by a mischievous 'island goddess' who sleeps in til noon when she feels like it, sits painting her fingernails in the shade of an olive tree, swims under the stars, and writes her poems in the sand or on scraps of paper that she saves from the wrappings of honeyed pastries.
She became a good friend to me that summer and, this morning, I have called her back. She has magic that I need. ✨ ☀️ Thank you for this lovely post.
Greece is a truly magical place, like ancient inspirations are still flowing through the atmosphere. I often eat pita/black olives/tomatoes/cucumber/olive oil for breakfast (what I ate during my one visit there) just so that I can feel like I’m back there for a few minutes as I start my day! 💙
So clever to have different alter-egos assigned different purposes! Thanks for this prompt, Jillian. ✨ I’m going to take a closer look at my internal conversations and see how I can experiment with “fictional” alter-egos in them. When I’m writing, I often ask (imaginary versions of) my favorite authors for advice -- one advises me on tone, another on plot and characterization, and several others on substantive / content questions. But, of course there’s ambiguity about whether their guidance is what the actual real human versions of the authors would say if I met them in the world outside my imagination. Playing with fictional alter-egos is such a fun idea, and seems like it would be useful for taking ownership of your own voice and authorship. (And it also seems like it could be a useful exercise for developing fictional characters for storytelling purposes!)
Ooo, I hadn't thought of how alter-egos might work for fiction writing--but I can see how they would be very helpful!
Gillian, your wonderful post made me realise how much I wish I could transform all my anonymous Substack readers out there -- if anyone is actually reading my newsletter, it's hard to know! -- into a collective version of Paul McCartney's Mr Luigi, friendly and benign and easy to please with my imperfect efforts. The solution, as usual, comes from my dog Freddie: "It's okay, I'm just writing this newsletter for Freddie, and he loves everything I do!"
This prompt is what I needed to hear and to call it an alter-ego is so fitting :)
Like you, @Jillian, I'm always motivated to just pick up a pen and write down my reactions to a special line or quote that really stood out for me. Just a knee-jerk reaction and the writing flows and of course, it doesn't sound academic, but it does facilitate getting in the flow of writing - even if there's a lot of editing to do afterwards. The anxiety I feel about writing when we seemingly delegate the work to our alter-egos help remove the fear of judgement that comes with my imposter syndrome.
I'm so glad, Jermy!
This is so fun and helpful! (I didn’t even know sir McCartney paints lol) I sometimes imagine myself as my own grad students and try to direct myself out of conceptual and writing problems. Found that really helpful and facilitated some important breakthroughs. I am an alright supervisor I guess!
Me neither, had no idea he paints! It's 10.20pm on Gadigal Country (aka Sydney) and I have a burning curiosity to Google Sir Paul McCartney's art work!
Do it! :)
I love this idea!
I write with quotes in my morning pages but not academically. Definitely something to try out.
I've been playing with four draft stages, ugly, messy, organized and polished. So I think I'm going to work with this instead:
Paige (aka ugly draft) - - she just needs words on the page.
Johnny (aka messy draft) - - this is in honor of the colleague with the messiest office I've ever seen - complete chaos. But there in the mess was a picture of Johnny Cash and a detail amongst the mess that I hadn't noticed.
Rory (organized draft) - - Rory Gilmore always seemed to have a plan, even when she got into a scrape, someone who always had a bit of a way out. To get from messy to organized, I need a bit of her vision.
Violet Crawley (aka polished draft) - - as prim and proper as academic writing can be but perhaps some acerbic wit and zingers could be hidden amongst the APA drudgery?
I've been trying to touch a section in each stage, most every day. But what fun instead to talk to Paige, Johnny, Rory and Violet every day!
Oh, what a wonderful idea to come up with different alter-egos for different stages of the writing process. I also love that your writing process has such discreet stages. I wish I could say the same for my process!
"discreet" might be overstating it a bit . . . .
this is brilliant--it makes the idea of stepping away from your anxiety so concrete, fun, and also spreads the labor around! If one AA isn't up for the job that day, you have several others you can call upon. I think mine would be the person I turn into when I got to medical appointments with my aging parents. While I usually am pretty conflict avoidant, I am extremely protective and not at all afraid to be assertive when it comes to my parents' health care. That AA could and would put anything on the page. Jillian, I really appreciate this prompt. Margy and Helen, all the contributors are so lovely, I wish we could have a Coaches Party as part of the #AcWriMoment!! Next year? :))
I'll be at that party too!
Yes, please! 🌞
Thank you, Michelle. And I love turning to your personal life to access different aspects of yourself. It's so much easier to advocate for people we love than it is for ourselves (or, at least, I've found that to be true)! And a Coaches Party would be so delightful!
Consider this my RSVP “yes” for the coaches’ party! And for reviving #AcWriMoments again next year!
This makes me think of the avatars that companies like Google comes up with when editing shared documents or when you access their programs and services without logging into your account, like Anonymous Unicorn / Aardvark / Llama, or one I only discovered recently, GlaringIndulgence43 (apparently my username in Google Play?) which has an avatar of an orange unicorn who seems to be in a trancelike state, and most famous of all, AcidicVermin9, created by another program, perhaps a game? I’ve lost track long ago, but I do use it as my X/Twitter username. So I already claim some of them as alter egos. I also can find ideas from, of all places, Tumblr, where users create all kinds of user names while “hiding” their public identity—they do this to “let loose” their true identity / alter ego. So now all I need to do is harness these identities and break out of my creative slump! I may come up with a three-way interview between me and my alter egos and see what I come up with!
I love this idea of a three-way interview!
This is brilliant!! I absolutely love the idea of creating alter egos, I also had no idea that Sir Paul McCartney was a painter. 🤓 This concept will allow me to break down the daunting research process into smaller steps. 🙏🩵
So happy to hear this!
OOh, this is lovely. I've written before about the necessity of getting your harshest critics out of your head when writing. You are definitely not writing for them! I've written about replacing that audience (as the Mr Luigi tactic does), but I also like the idea that there are multiple writers with their own techniques. (I'm going to add this as a link on that harshest critics post.)
Yes to getting the harshest critics out of our heads! We definitely don't need them.
Gillian, thank you so much for this. You have reminded me about something I wrote one summer when I was on a Greek island, surrounded by blue sky and sea but feeling scared and not good enough, at a real crossroads in my life.
One morning, in my notebook, I was visited by a mischievous 'island goddess' who sleeps in til noon when she feels like it, sits painting her fingernails in the shade of an olive tree, swims under the stars, and writes her poems in the sand or on scraps of paper that she saves from the wrappings of honeyed pastries.
She became a good friend to me that summer and, this morning, I have called her back. She has magic that I need. ✨ ☀️ Thank you for this lovely post.
Oooh, Sophie, I need that goddess in my life too!
Greece is a truly magical place, like ancient inspirations are still flowing through the atmosphere. I often eat pita/black olives/tomatoes/cucumber/olive oil for breakfast (what I ate during my one visit there) just so that I can feel like I’m back there for a few minutes as I start my day! 💙
🫒🍅🌞
Also, so sorry Jillian - just realised that my phone very helpfully 'autocorrected' your name.