The Secret Lives of Writers

I love having a secret identity.  It gets me through the day, every day.  I
have a great and special secret that nobody knows about unless I tell them. 

I have a whole clandestine, concealed life and it is glorious.

I go about a mundanely insane workday, when suddenly, there, in the next cubicle, I hear it; going by my desk I see it – some activating agent has been released into the air and infiltrates my protective shield worn in the normal world.  Carefully eluding notice I quickly steal away into a closet or bathroom stall, whip out my arsenal of pen and notebook, and the Secret Writer is released, tearing through and around the world so fast time is created, turning backward or forward at her whim.  The secret power can’t be stopped at this point.  It’s a part of me yet exists on its own too and it will be set loose.  I can only stand by, the mere conductor between the surging power and the waiting pen. 

With magic rapier activated I can reduce an archnemesis to a comical parody; plant devastating evidence; change the course of history; widen hips and harelips as easily as a slide rule; shrink my enemy’s penis until he is an object of pity in bedrooms and locker rooms alike; and change the world or create new ones.  Only once it is depleted does the Secret Writer relinquish the body and mind back to the setting and withdraw.

Spent but victorious I emerge with my secret safely tucked away again in my bag, nobody the wiser.  There are clues – one day perhaps they read a piece in

a magazine, a book; ‘Why, this sounds like somebody I know; like that thing that happened.’  They may suspect, but my true identity is mine, all mine, and only those I choose are allowed to see beneath my disguise, to what is hidden there, what thrives there.

The grueling, often punishing work demanded of this secret persona is worth it.  It makes me happy, connecting to something physically inside of me.  I can feel the pieces in there rearranging themselves when it emerges, like a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces falling into place.  I figure out all the pieces, the strategy, what goes where and when until it clicks, resonates.  It is a feeling of conviction and wonder; of touching something grand and mysterious, that I rarely have or find anywhere else, anytime else. 

Sometimes it resents containment, wanting acknowledgement and to be paraded about in full view.  Other times it buries itself so deeply, I can scarcely

remember it exists.  And every so often a beacon is lit and something cries out for representation, for the truth, for creation of a desperately needed reprieve and escape; and she is pulled forth once more. 

But every secret persona comes with a fatal flaw, a small chink that can bring it down, the inevitable cost to be paid for this superpower identity.  You must know what that is for you, those things that can stop you, make you question this Self and the power it has.  You must become intimately familiar with it so that it doesn’t drag you down to the bowels of writing hell. 
 

It’s different for everyone.  Maybe it’s another alternate identity that rears up alongside the Writer, telling him he can’t do it, dragging him back under time and again until he can no longer emerge.  Maybe it’s the blank page that Medusa-like freezes her motionless at the keyboard.  Maybe it’s somebody's resentment; a critique; or the clock and calendar that conspire.  Whatever it is, find it – find a way to trap it forever under miles of solid ice beneath your secret fortress.

And in this way our League will thrive.  We will exchange knowing glances on the streets, secret handshakes at doors, and meet surreptitiously in underground lairs where we will scheme and plot our plots.