Pretending Not To Be Me (And the Latest Coupon)

I’m not a people person.

I say this often (it’s one of my mantras), and some people have disputed it with me, but I think they mistake being personable with being into persons. I tend to keep to myself, and a lot of my time is spent inside of my own head away from other people (the ones that we could all agree are real; of course, all bets are off if I find some real people in there, too) (believe me, you really don’t want to go there.) I spend entirely too much time thinking about… thinking (that’s called intellection) to be a people person.

But I can “do” people – in fact, I sort of fall into them. Sometimes - in public - I  adopt accents as I hear them – and when it happens, I’m generally not aware of it until my wife hits my arm and tells me to stop. If you ever catch me doing this to you (the adopting, not the hitting) please understand that it is NOT a deliberate act.

I’m not sure why it happens; I like to think of myself as being strong-willed (or is it willful?), and I’ve been told at times that I have an over-bearing personality, but maybe I’m susceptible to suggestion. I wonder if that means I should watch out for:

·        Hypnosis (I don’t THINK I’ve ever tried it)

·        Possession (I haven’t SEEN any dead people)

·        Mind control (how would you KNOW if someone was doing that to you?)

I used to act. I enjoyed pretending to be other people (we all pretend while we’re growing up, don’t we), and over the run of a show (generally a couple of months of rehearsals and performances) bits of the characters I was playing would slip into my everyday life and become part of who Bill looked like to other people. This would be confusing to people, particularly those who met me during one character, then saw me change into another. They were never sure who I really was.

Sometimes I’m not sure if I’m sure. It just goes to show, it can be a dangerous world in there – at least if I let other people in. It’s crowded enough as it is.

(and NO, I’m not schizophrenic.) (Why are you saying that?)(Because I don’t want them to get the wrong idea.)

I used to think writing fiction was different from acting, but I’m not so sure anymore. You see, when I acted, I was telling a story to an audience, in the voice of a character in that story. When I write fiction, I’m telling a story to an audience (except they aren’t there when I write it) in the voice of (several) characters in that story.

Look at my books (please.) There are a host of characters in there varying from sweet, passive people to aggressively evil ones, and they all had to come from somewhere. I seem to be able to move from one to the other with ease. Male, female, animal, alien, human, demon, AI, gangster, bartender, old, young, are all crammed in my head and trying to find some way to get out; some of them make it onto the page.

I think I’d be in real trouble if I had Tourette's – imagine if I couldn’t control how and what was coming out. There are so many thoughts running around in my head that I know aren’t my own – how could they be? – they belong to those OTHERS that are in there, too.

So don’t give me a hard time when all I do is burst into song in the grocery store – there are a lot worse things I could be doing if I lost control of them all.

Guess this means I’m more of a people person than I thought.

Just saying…

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Our featured work this week is “The Right Idea” (Detective Jimmy Delaney story #3, in which mayoral candidate Mathews promises to clean up Barnstow, and Jimmy wonders what that will do to his business.) Here’s the link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/382205?ref=NoTimeToThink  

Use coupon code BZ29W to save 50% off the list price at check out on smashwords. The coupon is good through June 29^th. Enjoy!

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“Gladius” is slated for ePublication on July 3^rd – more news to come…

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William Mangieri’s writing can be found in many places, including:

• His Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B008O8CBDY
• Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/william-mangieri?store=book&keyword=william+mangieri
• Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/NoTimeToThink
• Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/pub/simplesitesearch.search.do?sitesearch_query=william+mangieri&sitesearch_type=STORE

Connect with him, go to “William Mangieri’s Writing Page” on Facebook (and LIKE and FOLLOW), at: http://www.facebook.com/NoTimeToThink

Or on his Goodreads author page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6893616.William_Mangieri