The Poet Sleeps With Me

Writing under a different identity has always appealed to me. If I sit down to write as myself, I am too conscious of my own personal history. I write from the perspective of a pasty white Scot too young to know anything useful. If I create a fresh identity and author work with the history, experience and wisdom of this person, the game changes.

Say I am Laird Bothie Jamie McCullum. I am descended from James Boswell and work for Historic Scotland as curator, and write the most amazingly dull modern jazz songs on piano. Assuming this lineage, position and so on, will give me a better starting point for historical fiction than writing as a pasty white dude into Radiohead and striped tops.

The most famous example of writing under different names or identities is Fernando Pessoa. The Portuguese poet and academic is known to have created over seventy various ‘heteronyms’ to write his work. Each character comes with its own biography, philosophy and writing style. Bernardo Soares, an accountant in Lisbon, is one of his most famous identities – noted for his dapper dress sense and penchant for idle philosophising.

On a note of digression, Drugstore wrote a gorgeous song in tribute to the poet. On another note of digression, Drugstore have also re-formed and are touring again. This is magnificent news for fans of Isabel Monteiro’s unique spine-tingling compositions. Anyhoo.

Brian O’Nolan wrote his columns as Myles na gCopaleen and his novels as Flann O’Brien. His works are filled with characters running riot across the pages, multiple voices fighting for control, authors back from the dead and sulking in Dublin pubs. Brilliant.

So I say: try out this approach. Dress up. Become another person, live their life, speak like them, the whole works. Then sit down and write something in the style of this dude or dudette. You might find it a new and interesting approach. Or you might find you hate them. Whatever works.