As I’m writing this, Eliot Spitzer has just announced his resignation as governor of New York State. As a private attorney, as a member of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, and then as New York State Attorney General, Spitzer went after wrongdoers with a vengeance. He broke up prostitution rings, prosecuted racketeering cases, and went after federal agencies he felt weren’t adequately protecting the consumer. Then on Monday we learned that at the same time he was doing all these good deeds, he was also spending upwards of $80,000 on high-priced call girls he was sneaking across state lines to visit when he should have been busy at work in his office.
Without getting into the political or legal implications of everything that’s been coming out this week, can you do this? Can you Spitzer?
What I mean by this is, Can you separate your personal beliefs or true personality from what you need to do for your job? Can you be one person in private and another for your career? In many professions, it’s required; if you can’t Spitzer, you’d better find another job.
Acting is one of those careers, and Jim Carrey is a prime example of an actor who Spitzers well. As Carrey told Matt Lauer on Monday on the Today Show, in 2000 he played the Ultimate Bad Guy, the Grinch, in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and now he’s supplying the voice of the Ultimate Good Guy, Horton, in a movie made from another Dr. Seuss classic, Horton Hears a Who. He pulled off each one convincingly, and he had a blast doing it. Is Carrey, as a person, an especially good or bad guy? No, of course not. Few people are. He’s just an average guy who can put on the “face” that’s required by his job.
When I first graduated from college with a BA in journalism, I became a newspaper reporter. As almost everyone who knew me back then can testify, I was shy. No, not shy, but SHY. Make that SHY!! I had trouble even speaking to myself in the mirror. But when I had to cover a story, when I had to—horrors!—interview someone, I did okay. Why? Because I was Elaine the Reporter, not Elaine the Private Person. Elaine the Reporter wasn’t shy. On the job, she could talk to people without a problem. She could sit at strangers’ kitchen tables and ask them about their frightening or unusual experiences. She could confront seedy or unfriendly people on the street or in their offices and try to weasel “the truth” out of them. But Elaine the Private Person had trouble crawling out from under her bed to answer the telephone on her nightstand.
I’m not a reporter anymore, but I continue to Spitzer today, especially when I’m working on one of my mysteries. To write any type of fiction well, a writer needs to be able to “become” his or her characters. With crime fiction, that means the writer needs to be able to identify not only with the sleuth, but also with the villain—to feel and understand the villain’s anger and hate, to think of and carry out (on paper) evil deeds, to lie and scheme and maim and kill.
I sometimes get worried by how easily I can do this. I sometimes outright scare my family. But I know the person who’s identifying with the unsavory characters and figuring out how torture the innocent is Elaine the Mystery Writer, not Elaine the Private Person, so I feel a little better about it. Heck, who’s kidding whom? I get totally into it! I enjoy it!
How about you? Can you Spitzer? If you’re a writer, you most likely can. How do you feel about it?
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6 comments:
I can Spitzer, too, given the right situation, especially since I used to be in both sales and bartending where reflection of one's inner truths can be a liability. You have to get Method when you're writing, don't you?
I can Spitzer. You have to be able to if you want to teach, which I've done in one way or another for most of my life. I once complained to a friend of mine about a student who wrote great papers...but who was fundamentally wrong in every one. (See, I have no hesitation in knowing that *I* am right, and he disagreed with me!) Still, he fulfilled the assignments, so I had to give him As.
I just had to laugh at this memo on the the Book Reporter.
Oh, yes I can Spitzer, and I'm awfully glad of it. I, too, was a reporter and shy. I hate to bother people. I did my job. Also, I noticed that I could look at anything if it was through the lens of my camera.
Looking at things through the lens of a camera--that's it exactly, Leah. You mean it literally, but it's a great figurative description. Other people look at it as wearing different hats. When they switch to or from their work persona, they switch their hat. Whatever works. I sometimes used to feel the click when I switched personas, like I was clicking my work persona on or off. I think most people have to do something. Especially the people who have jobs that require them to be totally different from what they really are--for example, a hard-nosed exec who really just wants to do nothing but roll around on the floor with the kids and pets. Usually the disparity between the two isn't so great, however. ;)
Laura: And triple everything for mass-market paperbacks!
Clare: Method Writing! Does that we mean we describe being cats on paper?
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