Of course it could just be me being me to think such things, but I'm getting the impression that if I had to tag myself with a label when it comes to my writing it might possibly be 'Method Writer'.
We all know about method actors; if you don't, look it up.
These are the ones who do their best to 'become' their characters, in whatever way it works for them to do so.
Me, I'm not exactly doing that, not quite.
My focus is to learn as much as possible about the time, place, people, events, politics, lifestyles, yada yada yada, that my stories are about.
It isn't necessarily because I want to 'become' a Character - they've all got their OWN roles to play while mine is simply observer and recorder. Still, as the one who's writing all this stuff down, I kind of have my own role to play.
So it's not quite the same. I don't have to 'become' anybody else; I just have to get to know them as we go along our journey together.
Even so, I just read some stuff about method acting and realized that in some ways that's exactly the path I've been taking.
Not on purpose, per se, but the more I learn the more I want to see if I can even begin to do a few of the things my Characters did.
Like dyeing fabric - or making a basket - or cooking with wood - or using the Storying itself to get me through the Long Darks that Dakota throws at us every year - or dressing as they would have dressed - or trying my hand at making a torc - just stuff, you know, that I'm curious about.
And in the back of my head I can hear some of the Characters watching and listening as I mess things up all the time.
*laughing*
On the one hand it's like they might be pleased that I'm trying - on the other hand I can just hear a couple of them:
'Are you out of your mind? We did things our way because that's the way it was - really - you think we'd have done all that hand stitching if we'd had a sewing machine? Use the machine or your clothes are liable to fall apart, for cryin' out loud.'
It just so happens that I really love the comfort and simplicity of most of 'their' clothes, and I don't want them to fall apart. So yeah, I use my sewing machine.
Since I have neither the time nor the skills to become good at any of the things those guys would have done all the time, I take comfort in the philosophy of each and all of us finding out what we WANT to do and then doing it to the best of our ability.
Ha.
I don't have to do all the stuff the Characters do!
I just get to be my own self and do what I do as best I can, just like everyone else!
WHEW!
Luckily for me, I happen to totally enjoy immersing myself in the times and places I write about; the research is amazing, and the writing that comes out of it is a journey I would never exchange for anything.
These next few days 'off' I get to spend as I choose (as soon as I get my yard mowed and my house tidied, which come to think of it is my choice as well so that fits nicely I'd say) - and I will hopefully be able to get to the time and the place I need to be in order to get the Characters to when and where THEY need to be and doing what they need to be doing.
Looking forward to that, I surely am.
Maybe I am sort of a 'Method Writer' after all.
So when I say I'm sometime else, I really do sort of mean it.
I'll be back when I get back.
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