Truth is stranger than fiction. Mark Twain
What is the best way to describe a particular life experience? That is the dilemma I am currently grappling with. The answer it seems to me depends on what you are trying to accomplish with the description. Is the purpose to provide a complete unbiased account of what actually happened? In many cases such an account is impossible though admirable and for the true historian irresistable Or, is the purpose to recreate the feelings, impressions and subjective thoughts that arose from the experience knowing that the reader may have different feelings, impressions and subjective thoughts? In my case I hope to provide a little of both, to record what happened in a particular place at a particular time and to portray as best I can something of what it was like to live through it.
Such has been one purpose of Think in the Morning. Many of our short stories and all of the posts under the heading “Sea Gull” have been trial runs for the project I now hope to devote my time to–my second novel. Part nonfiction, part friction–a chimera like the manticore in my first novel Behind the Locked Door. The cliche “hope is not a plan” is why I’m writing this blog today to put you on notice. I plan to have a draft of my novel by year end and to have it completed and published next year. I’m not going to be more specific about the subject but from what you’ve just read you can probably figure it out. Advice, recollections, encouragement–all are welcome. Feel free to comment on this blog or to send me an email.
Because I expect to be consumed by this project, my blogs going forward will be fewer and shorter. Wish me luck.