I read something yesterday that had me kinda sitting here with my jaw dropped. Apparently some anonymous romance writer had sent Dear Abby a letter asking for advice about her husband. You see, he reads her books and then thinks she's writing about her own experiences... I guess ones not with him.
Too bad for her. Lucky for me, my husband doesn't harbor the same lunacies, or he'd be sleeping with one eye open for the rest of his life. LOL
We write fiction. Sure, there are real things that happened to me woven into the threads of all my stories. But that's just it - they're woven in until no one but me knows what was real and what was imaginary, and sometimes I can't remember where one ends and the other begins. I take a bit from here and a bit from there and I make a whole new thing.
It's like painting. Artists use a variety of colors to make something new. A green they brush on next to a blue with a little black and maybe some yellow, and you've got a tree. All the individual paints are still there, but they don't look like themselves anymore.
Or it's like creating a tapestry. Different color threads come together under the weaver's hand to make a picture in cloth.
I make pictures in words. And that's all they are. Pictures. Hubs realizes this. Thank goodness for that. I'm truly sorry for any writers out there whose family members don't understand. I'm also sorry for the readers who think they see reality in the stories we create. They're just stories.
I hope you enjoy them.
Oh my gosh! I'm just thinking about the book I read last week which was very naughty - no naughty is too light a word for it. It was blistering in it's heat and very difficult for me to read. I have to keep skipping that stuff or I get uncomfortable & embarrassed. It would be dreadful if a spouse actually thought that stuff happened to the writer in reality! Woo weeeeee!!
ReplyDeleteMy husband gets asked if we do the naughty things. He grins but says nothing. I roll my eyes.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I feel sorry for writers who don't have support from their spouses. LG is my biggest fan. He lets me ramble on as I'm brainstorming and he'll drop in little nuggets of wisdom that further the plot. He stays home and holds the fort when I'm off networking. He scrambles to cover my expenses when I'm in a slump. I can't imagine NOT having his support. Even when he grins evilly. LOLOL