Real

Today's 100 words:

I took the night off yesterday. After a long couple of days, I needed to relax. Instead of writing, I watched five episodes of The Real World: Boston, which debuted in 1997, back when The Real World series was about very different, very real people learning to find commonalities and coexist. From what I understand, nowadays the show is more about beautiful young people with large breasts and six-pack abs who spend their days sitting in hot tubs and drinking. It's not real life--or at least it's not the type of reality I can appreciate.

Fiction. Nonfiction. Me.

I'm not sure that one can classify fiction and nonfiction as "difficult to write" and "not as difficult to write," but for me, nonfiction has always seemed easier. I've never really had difficulty writing about myself, my life, my friends and family; everything--the scenarios, the character quirks and flaws--was there for the taking, and I was simply the one putting it down on paper.

Lately, though, writing about myself is becoming harder, and for the past six months or so, I've found that it's easier to hide myself in fiction rather than expose myself in the spotlight of nonfiction. I'm not sure what's driving this change, although I can postulate that all the failures I feel as a mom have subconsciously led me to fiction as a means of getting away from a reality I'm not proud of. However, strangely enough, my current project is about a mother and her struggle with coming to terms with her life and how she's living it. And motherhood, in fact, is a recurring topic in my fiction, both in my short stories and in my novel-length works, and the mother's struggle with guilt is a common theme.  Perhaps, then, I'm not finding fiction easier than nonfiction but more forgiving instead; with fiction, I can cover my real sins with the made-up sins of others, and no one will be the wiser.

I don't know. I think there's something here, but I'm not sure I've found it yet...