A post at The Great Lettuce Head on Alice Munro has me rethinking yet again about where my own writing is going, and why it is perhaps stalling at the stop signs.
With quite a bit of Munro ready to sink into lined up on my hearth, I recall her realism in story and have maybe consciously avoided her for a bit while I explore the outer reaches of contemporary narrative. It has of course occurred to me that beyond the mundane–although Munro has the skill to make that come alive–the more emotionally traumatic, the conflicts of the day can well be entertaining and moving if I chose to write them. But the sense of the personal that I try to keep out of story (although obviously not out of weblogging without severe restraint) can be put to work. Can even, as GLH puts it, "pull at the notion of memory from many directions" in depending upon perception to make it interesting. As fiction, I can play with fact. Even make myself out to be the winner.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology