Spinning the straw of life into the gold of fiction
The best fiction springs out of truth like a dragon emerging from its cave, mouth open in a fierce roar.
What do you do with those interesting parts of your life experience that seem too dangerous to include in a memoir?
You turn to fiction, of course.
Fiction has always been the place where we permit ourselves to act out our wildest fantasies, safely sharing our deepest truths.
The best novels are the ones that go for the jugular of truth—the ones that could care less about hurting someone's feelings, offending someone, pissing someone off. The ones that sashay onto the cultural stage of a given moment and sound off with perfect pitch, skewering the guilty and celebrating the righteous.
I am sure we can all come up with a list of favorite novels that resonated in their own time, and continue to delight and impress, because they were so dedicated to telling the truth.
And not only so-called "realist" fiction: Kafka's surreal novel The Trial is the most accurate description ever told of a corrupt judicial system from the point of view of someone caught up in it, though it exists in an entirely fantastic universe.
Fiction allows us to share our darkest anxieties and most outlandish fantasies, the fears that keep us up at night as well as the daydreams that make us blush to remember.
Fiction also allows us to test out new possibilities, giving us free rein to indulge our inner "what if?" genius.
My favorite kind of fiction (like my favorite kind of memoir) is "purposeful," sharing a story that will make a positive difference in the world.
It might make that difference through forcefully sharing a perspective that the mainstream has long ignored.
It might be through reminding readers of a winding trail of history or memory long forgotten.
It might be through the creation of characters so vivid and driven that they leap off the page and gain new life in the minds of their readers.
It might be through the imagination of new ways of living, new kinds of relationships, new paradigms of identity and community.
The possibilities are as limitless as our imaginations, fed by our life experiences.
The best fiction springs out of truth like a dragon emerging from its cave, mouth open in a fierce roar.
Sure, we all have memories we push to the back of our psychic caves, life experiences we'd be embarrassed or ashamed to admit in memoir, or events we witnessed, other people's stories that left an indelible mark on our own psyches.
Yet those dangerous, edgy experiences, told purposefully, are precisely the ones that have the potential to wake people up, focus their attention, get them thinking and talking and making change in their lives and in the world.
The best novelists immerse themselves in truth, even as they spin the straw of lived experience into fiction.
Join me for an online workshop: Telling the Truth Through Fiction!
I’ll be giving a lively online workshop this Monday, March 11, from 10 am to noon, exploring ways that you can transform your memories into fiction.
As I wrote in a recent essay, fiction can be a wonderful way to release old sorrows and transmute them into provocative and purposeful stories.
It’s also a great way to give yourself a fun imaginative romp in new terrain!
Sponsored by the Berkshire Osher Institute for Lifelong Learning, this workshop is super-accessible, only $20 ($15 for Berkshire OLLI members).
Come with me to Tuscany this spring!
Join me for a fabulous Il Chiostro writing workshop May 25 - June 1, 2024 at the luxurious Borgo San Fedele, a meticulously restored monastery set in exquisite gardens amid a classic Tuscan landscape of olive groves and vineyards.
Our days will unfold in a perfect balance of guided writing and productive sharing; excursions guided by our Il Chiostro hosts to nearby picturesque medieval towns; coming home to San Fedele to relax by the pools and gardens, eat delicious meals and visit with new friends; and taking time for your own contemplative writing and thinking.
You’ll come away from this magical sojourn simultaneously enlivened and relaxed, with a deeper understanding of your purpose in writing memoir, along with many pages of new writing providing a plethora of potential doorways into the story of your life.
More information (and beautiful photos) here.
Ready to book? Click here.
Come Riding & Writing with me in Iceland this June!
Give your creative spirit the tonic it needs with an all-inclusive week of RIDING and WRITING in the spectacular Icelandic countryside, in the height of the bright summer season, June 10 – 16, 2024.
Every day we’ll ride out on sturdy, sweet Icelandic horses through the expansive rolling vistas of western Iceland, led by our experienced guides from Hestaland. Once you’ve experienced the exhilaration of the fast, smooth tolt, a gait unique to Icelandic horses, you may not want to go back to the trot!
We’ll eat delicious meals together at the beautiful Hestaland Guesthouse and participate in thoughtful, open-hearted guided writing sessions.
There will also be plenty of time for sharing and discussing your writing projects and visiting the nearby hot spring spa at Krauma.
Learn more about costs and accommodations on the application form.
Whether you’ve been to Iceland many times, or this will be your first experience there, this trip is sure to be transformative!
More information (and beautiful photos) here. Email me with any questions!
Friends, it’s my pleasure and my passion to support you as we stretch towards living our lives creatively and to the fullest.
The motto of my author consulting business is “Writing to Right the World,” and the motto of my book publishing business, Green Fire Press, is “Books that Make the World Better.”
If these intentions resonate with you and you are working on a book, or have one in mind, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Supporting creative people bring their work more strongly out into the world is one way I try to make the world better….