Truth And Fiction

Sorry for the short post today. Other than the big news coming about my Bissell SpotBot, it's been a less-than-creative week.

When I was working on my Master’s degree, I signed up for a fiction workshop one semester. Actually, I am no good at making things up. It’s the very reason I write creative nonfiction.

I cannot lie, I cannot cover for anyone and if you want to commit or have committed a crime, do not tell me about it.

Naturally, all of my fiction was based on my life, which is why it was so incredibly upsetting to go through a workshop and have the primary comment be, “This premise just isn’t believable. Something like this would never happen.”

(In case you’re wondering, the story in question was about a married couple with squatters in their back yard. At the time, my great aunt and uncle were trying to deal with some vagrants that had taken up behind their house – in Southside.)

So, whether or not anyone believes me when I write essay and memoir, at least I’ve gone ahead and called it truth to try and avoid that particular criticism.

For God’s sake, I have an anxiety disorder and occasionally still suffer from night terrors, and I was born on Elm Street.

The only time I almost got in a bar fight I was at a place called "The Trailer Park."

And, as I’ve said so many times before, I’ll never write a joke as good as this: My senior year of college, I took “Social Inequality” with Ivanka Trump.

She defended Reagan-omics, shock of shocks.