There are a million and one reasons not to do something. But they all usually amount to one thing: fear. And let me just say that I've got some of the fear and some of the dread when it comes to this thing I've started, Fiction Fridays. I've gotten used to writing certain types of posts in a certain voice. It's gotten comfortable. I write about particular topics. I poke fun at myself. I try to be humorous, when I can. I've begun to whittle down the focus of things here. And so it's become somewhat safe and easy for me. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I'm never one to ride the wave of "safe and easy" for very long. Safe and easy waves are usually short-lived ones, low and close to the shore. And so last week I decided to throw this Fiction Friday thing in the mix to stir things up and generate some big surf. And, you know, I think I've succeeded because, I have to admit, what I'm looking at here—these waves—they're awfully big, and I'm apt to fall off of these crunchers—and often. It was, in fact, a real challenge to stick to Fiction Friday this week, but not for the reasons I expected. I'll explain ...

I just got through reading Bret Easton Ellis's Lunar Park. There's some interesting stuff in that book that I want to flesh out in another post, but for now, I just want to cite this one quotation that touches on the heart of what I'm struggling with here. The main character of the book is "Bret Easton Ellis," and this "character self" says early on in the book: "I could never be as honest about myself in a piece of non-fiction as I could in any of my novels."(25)

In the book, there are many levels of irony with that statement, which I love. But what struck me most about the comment is how strangely accurate it is with my writing on this blog. I feel much more vulnerable posting fiction than I do the non-fiction riffs I usually write, even though, as I've written about before, there are definitely elements of fiction in most of my posts, which I call the "exaggeration license." And maybe it's that ability to fictionalize the non-fiction that makes it "safe." Along with the ability to pick and choose what I write about. The stuff that's true, that I don't mind sharing, is just what it claims to be: fact. (At least as much as anything filtered through the psyche—the id, the ego, the super-ego—and written down is "factual.") And the stuff I don't want to share is conveniently left out, glossed over, or otherwise hidden.

But with fiction, the entire thing is open to interpretation. It's not "truth," per se, because none of it actually ever happened, at least not exactly the way it's described. But there is truth in it. And sometimes that truth is more true than anything else I write. Sometimes that truth is the scariest thing to put on paper (or screen) and show to people.

Which brings us back to "the fear." We live in a world of fear. And, I'll tell you, I'm scared. A lot. I'm scared of dying. I'm scared of things like cancer. Of bacteria. Of the crap in our oceans poisoning our bodies. But I'm also scared of living, brother, and I'm sometimes scared of myself. Because with all the standard set of fears that got instilled in me as kid, it really is true that "my mother never warned me about my own destructive appetite" (thanks Jenny).

When it comes to my writing, I'm scared like hell of using cliché, of being trite or boring. But I'm also scared that if I don't indulge in cliché at least a little bit, I won't be understood. And more than anything else, I'm scared that the stuff I'm putting down is just plain bad. That's a big one. I had a short story from college I was going to post this week, but yesterday I got cold feet. Because it's really weird looking back at things you wrote almost 15 years ago, even for me, let alone you guys. It needed a heavy edit.

So, for now, I think what I'm going to do is use Fiction Fridays as a way to post short "writing exercises" that I get from this book called The 3 am Epiphany, which I bought about a year ago, but haven't done much with until now. In my college creative writing classes, my professors always kind of frowned upon writing exercises. Their feeling was just that we should write what we wanted and bring it to class for a very public lashing and embarrassment in front of our peers. Good times. But that approach really leaves things wide open, and tends to fuel a bit of the "writer's block." Because when everything is possible, it's difficult to focus on just one thing. Sometimes the restrictions put on you by an exercise can be oddly "freeing."

For the purposes of my posts, using the exercises will, I think, take some of the pressure off and makes the posts more "casual." I won't have to feel the pressure of "finishing" a story and biting my nails wondering how it's going to be interpreted. Okay maybe, I'll still have some of that, but having the rules of the exercise there (along with a self-imposed length restriction) will put a little more separation between me and it. I also think it'll make for more bite-sized (read: "blog-able") stuff, frankly.

I started this as an "intro" to this week's Fiction Friday post, but quickly realized it was going to have to be it's own post because, like most of my posts, it would be too damn long. So there it is. I've got another post ready, but I really don't like to post twice in one day. Other than the weekends, Friday is always the slowest traffic day. It's pretty much universally that way on every Web site I've ever managed. I can't figure it out, because you would think Friday would be a big Web-surfing day. But I suppose it's also a day for "long lunches" and "leaving early" or catching up on the shit that you put off all week. So chances are most people who stop by my blog won't even read any of this until next week, if at all. So that means I sort of copped out of Fiction Friday this week. But not really. Because I had something ready. (Really, I swear!) I just had to say this other thing first. Anyway, if you have any thoughts, speak up. Leave a comment or send me an email. I'd love to hear them.

Now take an early lunch, already! And have a good weekend.

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