I am trying to imagine myself as an emergency room physician, a man who successfully deals with urgent and critical care issues calmly but with an extreme sense of urgency. At the same time, this man who has such remarkable command over the E.R. is far from one to be admired in his personal relationships. He botches relationships and verbally abuses people he claims to love. He is as inept in love as he is expert in critical care medicine.
The reason I am trying to imagine myself in the skin of this physician is that I want to write about him realistically. I want t0 authentically portray the man; the way he thinks, the way he responds to his two worlds (professional and personal), and the way his mind works. I want to make this clearly troubled man the object of a reader’s loathing while, at the same time, the object of empathy and sympathy. I want his demons clearly visible, yet I don’t want to tell about them, I want to show them. First, I have to know what those demons are, from whence they sprang and why they so successfully keep hold of him and how they manage to torture him so that he tortures others.
So, I have to get inside his head. I have to be him. But I don’t want to BE him, you know?
