Exhuming Memories

Writing fiction is a dangerous endeavor, for it relies on a combination of experience and creativity. As we write, secrets seem to emerge from caves we think lie buried under a thousand layers of memories and experience. But are they truly secrets or simply fantasies projected onto recollections? Were they hatched from a combination of thinking of too many plot lines and too many unsuccessful efforts to dredge up memories unwilling to be exhumed? The danger lies in fiction’s ability to create false memories where real memories never existed; ideas planted in the brain evolve to become remembered experiences.

If I continued, you might get the impression that I live in a world in which fantasy supersedes reality. Would that it were so, from time to time. Sadly, that’s not the case. I understand reality all too well. No, I’m simply expressing my view of a round world from a flat perspective. I love fiction far more than fiction loves me; fiction is fickle, friends. Trust me on this. It does not reveal who you are any more than your characters do. And that will end this slightly off-center diatribe.

 

About John Swinburn

"Love not what you are but what you may become."― Miguel de Cervantes
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