Choosing a point of view: Stuck between persons

In my last post I briefly mentioned a new fiction work I'm in the midst of ideating, scribing and obsessing over. (Notice the lack of Oxford comma in this intro sentence).Admittedly the idea itself isn't that new. The idea struck me while I was on a business trip to San Francisco six months ago. Words started free flowing from my hand as I put actual pen to paper. The story took shape as I wrote dialogue and tried to set the scene. The attempt to fictionalize my own thoughts and life events was always hard and this time was no different. My protagonists always end up being not-so-subtle shadows of myself.I'm always drawn to the notion of writing in third person. It's an attempt to give actual emotional space between myself and my protagonist. But it doesn't serve me well because it stunts my character development and hampers my already kinda crappy ability to show and not tell. I end up "telling" constantly much to the chagrin of my workshop partner/best friend/amazing writer pal. I feel a bit timid about using the first person. The fear stems from exposing too much of myself, my innermost self and thoughts. But that's the point of fiction, draw on the inspiration of what you know and what's transpired in your life but unleash a creativity to embellish, exaggerate and flat-out make things up.Write now I've got about 68 pages written, and I'm betting about 20% is viable to turn into my actual novel. So much of it is pre-writing, the stream of consciousness dialogue between characters and thought streams of my protagonist that are serving no purpose and stalling any action. But the beauty of having writing pals is it instantly thickens your skin. The helpful reminder from Faulkner via my best friend to "kill your darlings" and seeing feedback on how it feels to read the work from a place of distant quasi-interest is a helpful form of real talk. The real talk is this - I need to try writing this in first person. I need to get into the head of my main character and let them shine through. There are so many interesting things that are happening to my character. I've got loads of scenarios that I've thought about throwing their way. All of this expository pre-writing is stifling my ability to actually tell a story.(Photo by Janko Ferlič on Unsplash)The good news is this content doesn't go to waste. It's an exploratory exercise and it's all part of the process, at least the process as I'm going about it. Which is what I love most about writing. Every one who sits down to write does so in a different way. Digital or by hand, typewriter or via app. In spurts and starts, ebbs and flows. Perhaps quickly and in a deluge or methodically over time for just an hour a day. It's whatever you like. Choose your own adventure. It's amazing! And so in this process I'm currently mired in I'm going to go with the flow. I'm going to create a separate document to archive all of this good stuff, this capturing of random thoughts and opinions of my protagonist.I'm going to sleep on it. Sound advice from that lovely best friend of mine. Before I take any action I want to wallow in the thought of what it would be like to tell this particular story from the first person POV rather than fluctuating between third person with a smattering of second-person declarations thrown in, undoubtedly throwing my future readers off. And turning them off, to be totally frank.The world I'm writing can become so much crisper and deliberate if I write in first person. All of these trains of thoughts I've written in odd places between bouts of actual action can be shared from that first person POV if I just embrace the different person. And maybe, just maybe I can stop forcing through the opinion of my protagonist and show what's happening in this world of my making. That's the trick, isn't it?(Featured Photo by Laurenz Kleinheider on Unsplash)