I got an orange notebook today, but not just any orange notebook, because I have a confession to make. There’s someone I really wish I could be—well, some of the time, anyway—Kalinda Sharma, the private investigator on the TV hit The Good Wife.

Kalinda, played by Emmy award winning actress Archie Panjabi, wears sunglasses (sometimes even at night and inside), holds meetings at bars where she drinks shots of tequila, and gets paid four hundred dollars an hour. She has a really cool orange notebook in which she jots down notes as she coolly and calmly grills people. Now I have one just like it.

[pullquote]She’s badass, she’s stealthy, she gets things done, she stays calm and collected and never flinches, she drives really fast and never gets a ticket. She asks amazing, insightful questions, and she has a perfect-sized bright orange notebook…[/pullquote]

It’s no secret—I’ve written about it here on Writer Unboxed—I like the idea of being a spy, and I frequently use spying as a tool to inspire my writing. Sometimes I even wish I’d been a private investigator. In short, sometimes I wish I were Kalinda.

She’s my alter ego. My avatar. These words describe people we’d like to be, people we’d like to be represented by, or sometimes someone we make up as our other self. It turns out I’m not alone in having an alter ego. It isn’t that rare, and it may actually be good for you—particularly in some professions—like writing or entertaining and even in business. I told a friend about this, and she immediately expressed concern. I’ll tell you what I told her. No. I do not think I have multiple personalities. I just sometimes wish I could be someone else. Kalinda.

Performance enhancing

Not everyone’s alter ego is a real person or even a non-self-invented fictional character. [Read more…]