Split personality

This is a cry for help.  Yes I do want advice and suggestions. Normally I don't, and I just want to be right.

Okay with that out of the way.

Some years ago I changed from writing novels to plays.  It made sense.  I'm a crap novelist, everyone raved about my dialogue, and I've done a lot of theatre.  So I switched back to plays (I used to write them when I was in my teens). What I did discover though is that people were very keen to pick holes in what I'd written and re-write it for me as we rehearsed. In fact it was very hard work I ended up arguing with actors.

Enter Tim Barcode. An invention. I did spread the rumour that he may be from Melbourne.  From then on, no one even questioned the text, they just got down and worked on the plays. So from 1995 till about 2005 the prolific Barcode produced my best work.  I discovered that I liked people not knowing who he was AND Barcode could say things I couldn't. He wasn't as PC as I am and he was also smarter. He was almost a dangerous intellectual.

Then came the play Real and the support from Playmarket.  Playmarket gave me a lot of help getting Real ready for perfomance, particularly read throughs and then a funded workshop. the support was fantastic.  A condition was that it had to be under my name not Barcode. One reason was I wouldn't be taken seriously.  So Sam Fisher started writing the plays. Now the problem is, or may be, they're not as good.  BUT I have a body of work by Barcode, a series of plays by my given name and I've even got some down as co-authored.

As an interesting aside - 'Sam Fisher' is trademarked based on the game Splinter Cell arising from a Tom Clancy novel.Apparently I'm an ex Navy seal with a colourful past.  Who knew?  Tim Barcode is mine and mine alone and URL I own is www.timbarcode.com.

I'm leaning towards going back to Barcode but the whole personal brand thing has just got very confusing. I could maybe just buckle down and just write and not worry about it. Maybe.  Whatever I need to just make a decision and go with it.

So do I stick with Sam, follow the co-authoring path, or revert to Barcode?

So as I started - HELP (that is the cry) - Thoughts, abuse, suggestions for good psychologists, psychotherapists or pharmaceuticals?

 

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