Artist reading this post will sympathize, while the rest of you will give me credit simply to shut me up. 

I’m a method writer. I pour my feelings, blood, sweat and tears into my work. I sit with the characters, get into their heads, experience their pain and sorrow…in short, I bleed. This is fine during happy times but it’s the darker more serious bits that drive me up the wall. I get this tightening of the belly thing going and it sucks!

So I skirt around the areas of unpleasantness until I finally work up the nerve to address them. For anyone who has read “Make Her Want It”, you know which scene(s) I’m talking about. I’m tearfully beating my characters like a piñata, sending their guts spilling to the ground for my readers to partake. Only then can I piece their lifeless misshapen bodies back together, better than before. It’s emotional, it’s gut wrenching, it’s numbing. It sucks!

Talking to fellow authors who aren’t method writers, I hear the same thing, “Oh, be happy you can dig that deep. The readers can feel what the characters are feeling.” To this I say, “Shut up!” and see picture below...:)

It’s true, the emotions of the characters and scenes are made more powerful because we can conjure these feelings and lay them on paper. However, we’re left open like a festering wound….crumpled on the floor heaving for air, our beating hearts resting bloodily in our outstretched hands to the applause and jeers of our fans and critics.

This is what method artist go through. It’s not always pretty…it’s damn near unattractive. Once we commit to the scene/song/character, we go all the way. Hell, Heath Ledger ended up taking anti-depressants while reading the script for the Joker...mind you they hadn’t even begun shooting! Hello, what part of this screams healthy?!

Moving on…

I’ve reached that pivotal point in “Wicked”. All of the words and scenes are in my head crying to be put on page. There’s no skirting around it, I have to muster the strength to do it. Actually, “Wicked” has about four different ending because I haven’t decided which one to use.

Other notable method artists, just to name a few, are:
 Anthony Hopkins
Christina Aguilera
Jeff Goldblum
Alice Walker
Jane Austen
Ray Fiennes
Matt Damon
Spalding Gray
Laurence Fishburne
Sarah Vaughan
Ann Rice
Patti Labelle

I remember reading a few years ago that Patti Labelle dreads singing “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” because, emotionally, it takes so much out of her. Leading up to the song, she feels sick. I completely understand what she means but we power through it and count ourselves blessed to have loyal fans/friends. Still, we bleed! :)

Anyway, I have three manuscripts, three short stories, and two novellas staring back at me. I’d better get to work. Chat soon....


I could SO see Jane Austen flipping the bird!