What is truth?

            I need to think of something to blog.

            Oh, yes, I have been writing:  drafting a Christian education report, collaborating on the Whidbey Presbyterian church history project, developing my first ever short story . . .

            There is the topic:  nonfiction versus fiction, and I’m not talking about the church stuff.

            I was always bewildered by how writers create fiction because I believed they created something out of nothing.  God is the only one I know who can do that.

            So since my imagination provides no plots, I am reduced to writing about what I know—or at least what I experience.  Sometimes I play around with putting my childhood self into third person.  Sometimes the third-person approach allows for personal lapses of memory.  Sometimes it provides a porous protection from too much pain.  But up until now, my third-person accounts have been strictly autobiographical with a splash of fictional color or—at the very least—name changes to protect the guilty.

            I don’t really want to admit that “Grace in the Wilderness” has any autobiography about it.  But I can freely say that what is true and what is fiction is not so easy to separate as I once thought.  As I slashed a 30+ page manuscript to 12 pages, I found surprising truth in the middle of fiction and surprising fiction in the middle of truth.  I cut minor characters, ruthlessly reshaped the mommy character, let go my iron grip on memoir, and let story take over.  In the process, I discovered symbol and theme.  My prose became more spare.  I grieved for Gracie.  I found a story that is mine and not mine.

            And therein lies the problem:  I’m just not ready to blog it yet.