2013-11-25 - 9:57 a.m.

redact and elide

so, i received a note via social media, asking if i was writing fiction. if not, the querant asked, was it ethical for me to post about these people? isn't it bad form to blog about one's employers? and how would you like it, if someone came into your home when you were vulnerable, and then they wrote about you?

keeping in mind that all non-fiction is creative non-fiction, here are some facts. my kitty has another little mast cell tumor on his skin, so i have been picking up a few hours as a personal care assistant. while i may be deficient in what my evangelical friends call a servant's heart - ha! - i know how hard it is to find respite around the holidays. i clean, run errands, prep meals, do small repairs, occasionally read aloud. i'd rather do this than copyedit or work retail.

look, when i was in my teens and early twenties, i spent a lot of time with creative and artistic people incredibly focused on their craft. i felt like a kid playing dress-up, and then i read renata adler. i thought, well shit, she's already done it.

but i kept writing for ten more years in a desultory sort of way - at least, what passes for desultory around here. and i wish i hadn't stopped working at it.

i write what i want, about what i want, for whom i want.

no, it isn't supposed to be easy.

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moreover, it is right to be uncomfortable. i mean to be writing about unsettling things and how they settle into place and shape the rightness of the world.

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