As I writer, I am very interested in personal experience. Why am I interested in personal experience? Simply because to me that is where good fiction comes from. Philip Roth said it best, the great tales of embarrassment and defacement start right here with the facts. So you take your life, you look at it objectively, you find an interesting theme, a lesson, a moral, a trop, you reconstruct the facts accordingly to elucidate those important literary aspects and then you have a good book. A real book that people can relate to because it is a real book. The line between autobiography and fictional memiors has always been unclear. When writing about yourself, how can you resist editing your life to make sense. But I'm off track with that thought, the important thing about this is that personal experience, a writer's life, has always been the first requisite for fiction, in my opinion. On an interesting side note, perhaps that explains some of the poor decisions I've made in the past.

A few months ago I submitted a story to a UW creative writing contest. I knew I wasn't going to win anything but I was interested in seeing who won these things. Anyway, I just got to thinking while there about something and blah blah blah, I restarted this post two days after I started writing it (Thursday). So I don’t know where I was going but let me start again and then just cut to the point.

What is it worth? I mean I’ve had an interesting life and I think I have a certain perspective on things that will allow me to write really great stories. And I know about literature and am still learning. But what’s that worth. If no one gets what you are saying, if people can just lie about these experience and perspectives in fiction, why should you have to be authentic or honest? I just don’t understand. Fuck it.

There was a tornado in Madison today. I fucking hate tornados.