{"id":3938,"date":"2015-06-11T06:56:52","date_gmt":"2015-06-11T06:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/?p=3938"},"modified":"2015-06-18T19:23:40","modified_gmt":"2015-06-18T19:23:40","slug":"my-fiction-my-freedom-free-to-imagine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/?p=3938","title":{"rendered":"Free To Imagine"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Writing is vexing, on so many levels. I don\u2019t understand all this post modern fuss over genre and grow weary of explaining that I did indeed imagine the story in The Town Slut\u2019s Daughter<\/em>. Naturally it’s inspired by life experience. Write what you know. Right? Which is all I wrote, which is why it’s authentic. If what I wrote was published as memoir, or creative non-fiction-whatever the hell that is- I would have been crucified, because I made stuff up, yet people refuse to believe\u00a0 my novel isn’t memoir. I can say unequivocally that I am not Fiona and Fiona is not I.<\/p>\n

Our hunger for realism, hence the reality show phenomenon, and rise of the documentary fuel such expectations. Pressure. I say this because poet and writer Catherine Owen<\/a>, whom I admire greatly, reviewed<\/a> my book bemoaning in the main that I\u2019d chosen to write fiction. Despite confusion over genre I never doubted my instincts, knew I was framing narrative within a novel. Works for me. I understand her yearning for just the facts<\/em> but my life is not all that interesting, in reality. As\u00a0Karl Ove Knausg\u00e5rd recently emphasized\u00a0 about his autobiographical novel,\u00a0 My Struggle<\/em>,\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s fictional even if it\u2019s nonfictional. It\u2019s not as if I\u2019m trying to document anything. I\u2019m looking for something within that material.\u201d Autobiographical novel<\/em> also seems a contradiction in terms and I know truth<\/em> is relative. Let the critics and pundits postulate ad nauseum, I need to focus on process. If you want reality, read my blog. I’m getting good at making my life sound exciting.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I am a coward, for I can wear it like a veil, but it is also liberating and I maintain there is more truth in fiction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing is vexing, on so many levels. I don\u2019t understand all this post modern fuss over genre and grow weary of explaining that I did indeed imagine the story in The Town Slut\u2019s Daughter. Naturally it’s inspired by life experience. Write what you know. Right? Which is all I wrote, which is why it’s authentic. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[126,149,321],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3938"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3938"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3972,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3938\/revisions\/3972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}