It is hard enough to honestly evaluate secret things in our deceitful hearts when we probe them through reflection, meditation, prayer, therapy. These means may allow us to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves but certainly no therapist or spiritual counselor expects us to install a window into our heart for the world's peeping Toms vicariously to peek through the slats of its blinds.
Fiction forces us to wash our windowpanes.
More than that: writing compelling fiction takes a mighty courage that tears the blinds down in the plain view of perfect strangers and long time friends.
Of course there is the camouflage of the story.
A friend of several decades called yesterday to say she had finally read Pastor's Ex-Wife. She admired what she called my courage and also enjoyed the story in its own right. Perhaps it takes even more courage to read what a friend writes. And, perhaps the mark of a true friend respects the boundaries between fact and fiction by refusing to risk asking where those boundaries are....
About Me
- Lesley
- I have discovered that walking a very narrow path leads to broad places of peace, contentment, and provision. After an eclectic career of nonprofit leadership, museums, education and social services, Dr. Lesley Barker is transitioning to retirement devoted to full time writing. Expect surprises to come from her pen.
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