I don't like writing about myself. I'd much rather write of a thinly disguised foil, someone like me, but who can walk in heels, who flirts or lies, who wears many hats. The closest I got to the truth was a story in which a girl pines and pines for an almost lover who is far away (true) only to find out later that he has died tragically coming back for her (not true), and that he loves her, too (still a little ambiguous). And still, despite the guise of fiction, every day I fear that someone will make the connection and call me out on my wimpy revelation. Or ask me why I killed him off. My creative writing professor published a novel involving characters uncannily similar to herself and her husband who engage in a severely pathologized sadomasochistic relationship. You can bet that every one of her students is wondering if they really string each other up on a decorative iron wall decoration in their bedroom.
But there's a greater risk in writing in the first person. It isn't just the opinions, embarrassing stories or the incredibly nit-picky way I think about restaurants. My character is instilled in the way I write, it is my tone, my point of view, my pitiable grammar. Even though I write about chicken, a reader is meeting me for the first time. Not Rebecca and the cat she's left with when her true love up and dies; this is me. I am a writer, and I am an eater, and I am out to graze.
