Is it a smashed-up Barbie doll head??
I have mixed feelings about writing fiction. First, I have no formal training, other than a class I took as an undergraduate in college 40 years ago. Second, I understand non-fiction, which is journalism adjacent. Having been a PR person for decades, I feel comfortable with reportage, commentary, essays. Third, I feel grounded with non-fiction, because when I write an essay my job is to elucidate as clearly as I can a set of real facts and feelings on a specific timeline. Finding a jewel of clear truth while cutting away everything that dims it is a great pleasure as a writer.
But fiction? You make up absolutely everything. Will I ever feel like I’m any good at this?? As I wrote back in May, the heady realm of Toni Morrison and Thomas Hardy terrifies me. Also, there are hundreds (thousands?) of genres. It’s a vast and unknowable universe and I’m in a tiny unmanned space pod, wondering if I’ll ever land on the right planet.
These questions and doubts have been present every day this summer as I’ve finished the first major draft of my novel. I think what I’m writing might be an ‘autobiographical novel’ because it’s a fictionalization of my memoir. Except there’s one big change, which is that I’ve felt compelled to write a happy ending to this story. My novel’s heroine, after losing the love of her…
