Fiction Versus Non-Fiction

My name is Jack and I am a writer. I am a story teller and spinner of yarns that include both truth and fiction.  Some of the posts here are fragments of short stories that I write and others are my observations of life. I don’t always make it clear which is which. Some people chastise me for doing so because they think that I am being unfair to the reader.

And while there may be truth to that there is a higher truth at work…I don’t care. The community of people that hang out here are smart enough to discern which is which and to appreciate that I like blurring the lines. I love reading science fiction and fantasy. I never grow tired of  Tolkien but I tend never to try to write like he did because I feel like a cheap copy. I think that given some time I could come up with something that would fit that genre and that people would like it, but it is not where I am focused. Or at least not now.

These blurbs about life are easy for me. Most people have loved and lost. They can relate to the struggle between man and woman. They understand that though we attempt to apply logic to people it rarely works. It flames out because we are all crazy in one way or another. We can watch the same movie and have different understandings of it.

I say chocolate chip cookies and you think of baking with grandma. You smell her kitchen, remember her perfume and sigh wistfully because you wish that you could have one more dinner at her house. Mention chocolate chip cookies to my old friend Jimmy and he freaks. He hates chocolate. It is probably because it makes him break out in a rash that is so nasty doctors won’t see him without first donning a hazmat suit.

Tonight I adapted a fictional piece for The Red Dress Club. It originally appeared on the old blog as part of Fragments of Fiction. My initial intent had been to tie it into this story but it just never happened. Lately I have been revisiting those pieces and have been thinking about how to weave all the pieces into something larger.

My words are like my children. I love them fiercely and hope to give them all that they deserve. I think that it is long past time to take that story on and make it into something. Stay tuned.