Blood of the Scribe

So once, I thought I wanted to be a published fiction writer.Then I started college writing classes.

Turns out I suck at fiction and I have a knack with memoir.

Writers of memoir often confront critics who claim that their "facts" are inaccurate. Unless we're talking about evolution, it is my experience that factual events are interpreted differently by everyone who experiences them, which means there is a very fine line between fact and fiction.

Another challenge for writers of memoir is that many people consider it "boring" to discuss one's life in an insightful and retrospective manner. I can say that I've often been guilty of harboring such feelings.

Then I read something like Sickened by Julie Gregory, and I realize that many of the functions of dark fiction that I find so appealing are (sadly) just as present in the non-fiction genre: horror, murder, psychological dysfunction, inconspicuous threats, sociopathology, etc.

People often ask me what the tattoo on my forearm means, and I'm always startled to realize that I've changed in many ways that are fundamental to my own story. I haven't truly lost my love of writing, I've simply lost the ambition to follow that love into the tedious process of converting one-dimensional words into the haunting ghosts of my past.

In other words: I am fucking lazy.
All of the above is a convoluted way of saying that perhaps there is more to this story than I realized.