I’ve been thinking a lot about stories lately. We’re all made up of them, the ones we tell ourselves and the ones we tell each other, the ones that obscure and the ones that reveal.
The ancients used to gaze up at the night sky and see the glowing, objective facts of stars. It wasn’t until they connected the dots, etching constellations into the vastness of the abyss, that the stars became maps for journeys of discovery.
Aunt Anna’s trunk now lives in the middle of a dorm room in Stanford, California. I went back and got it from Uncle Dale before my epic drive cross-country with my dad. Mom was right; it makes a good coffee table, when you don’t trip over it in the night.
My favorite class is Beginning Fiction Workshop. The professor likes to talk in profound statements that remind me of Evan’s fondness for quotations (even though we don’t see each other as much as we used to, he’s still around).
Show, don’t tell, our teacher says. Keep the scene moving. Kill your darlings. A protagonist should be flawed but forgivable. It makes me wonder—
Can you forgive an impostor?