In this Case, Fiction is Stranger than Truth

Posted bySheila Morris 18 Comments on In this Case, Fiction is Stranger than Truth

Usually whenever I do a reading from one of my nonfiction books, someone raises a hand during the q & a to ask, “Yes, but why don’t you write fiction?” or “Have you ever thought about writing fiction?”  My response is fiction is too hard for me to write.  Nonfiction is no piece of cake for me, but at least it begins with the truth as I know it which makes it grounded in something and somehow that is important for a Taurus. I like to have a starting point – it creates less anxiety for me in writing.

Fiction is like flailing around in emptiness and space where I am responsible for creating something out of nothing, and that makes me incredibly anxious before I even begin to sit down at the computer to write. So many hurdles for me to overcome in writing fiction.

The first problem I have is character names. I can’t think up good names for my characters and it’s not for lack of a reservoir to draw from. I collect names like I collect sayings – I have literally folders of names that I’ve saved through the years, but when it comes to putting them in a story, I can’t find the right ones. None of the names belong  with my plot, which is my second problem. What are these nameless characters going to do? And how can I possibly keep them doing it for more than a chapter?

The short story has been my salvation, although not a soul realized my redemption except  me. I have submitted a number of short stories for various literary contests, anthology collections, and magazines over the past ten years. One of them, Honky Tonk Cowboy, was published in the storyteller magazine in 2013  and another one, Dear Auntie O, recently appeared in a local magazine Fun after Fifty.net.  If I were a major league baseball player with this batting average, I wouldn’t be on a team roster anywhere.

With that record, why in the world would I take on a serialized fiction project? Good question. I believe the answer is timing. As Teresa reminded me today as we were driving through town after lunch, timing is everything. And so it is.

Channillo came along at a time when I was in the process of writing a novel or novella or a very long short story – I’m not sure which – a story I started before Brokeback Mountain was a major motion picture hit. It’s a story I take out periodically, dust it off and proclaim I can write fiction. The jury is out on that.

However, Channillo is a venue that offers serialized literature for a very nominal monthly fee much like Netflix does for the small screen, and  I decided to give my fiction one last ride. Chapter One of my story Cowgirls at the Roundup is available now on Channillo in the Historical Romance genre. Yikes! I must be fifty shades of red.

Click on the link in my blogroll to the right between Books I Buy and Don.

Saddle up.

Published by Sheila Morris

Sheila Morris is a personal historian, essayist with humorist tendencies, lesbian activist, truth seeker and speaker in the tradition of other female Texas storytellers including her paternal grandmother. In December, 2017, the University of South Carolina Press published her collection of first-person accounts of a few of the people primarily responsible for the development of LGBTQ+ organizations in South Carolina. Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will resonate with everyone interested in LGBTQ+ history in the South during the tumultuous times from the AIDS pandemic to marriage equality. She has published five nonfiction books including two memoirs, an essay compilation and two collections of her favorite blogs from I'll Call It Like I See It. Her first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing received a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Her writings have been included in various anthologies including Out Loud: the best of Rainbow Radio, Saints and Sinners New Fiction from the 2017 Festival, Mothers and Other Creatures; Cowboys, Cops, Killers, and Ghosts (Texas Folklore Society LXIX). She is a displaced Texan living in South Carolina with her wife Teresa Williams and their dogs Spike, Charly and Carl. She is also Naynay to her two granddaughters Ella and Molly James who light up her life for real. Born in rural Grimes County, Texas in 1946 her Texas roots still run wide and deep.

18 replies on “In this Case, Fiction is Stranger than Truth”

  2. Good lord!!! Thirty rejections!!! Bless you for continuing to try, thick skin or not. But you’re right. This is a fascinating topic, and important. Someone out there will want it. I have to think the time is right now, with gay marriage issues in the South. Anyway, I think it’s a hot topic.

    I am always your friend, and honored beyond all happiness to be a personal best!!! ❤ 😀 We "wolf" children need to stick together. 😀

    Much love and support.
    Ann

    P.S. There is an Italian American word, "scustamade" (scoo-STAH-mah-deh), that roughly translates as extremely naughty/mischievous/hardheaded all rolled into one. Poppy is the living embodiment of scustamade with Doctor Zeus close on her heels. The minute I start to read anything, she starts her antics with a wild eye and a doggy grin. She knows!! I'm hoping I can knock out your story before she catches on!! 😀

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    1. I hope you will check it out – what in the world I am doing writing romance is beyond me, but I’d like to have a reader! That would force me to keep writing!! 🙂
      I love the comparison to watercolor painting! I will try to think of my short stories like that!
      Thanks so much for all of your comments!

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    1. Thanks, Don – writing has given the third act of my life an incredible joy! I saved the best for last maybe: Committed to Home – Chronicles of the Queer Movement from a Southern Perspective, 1984 – 2014. Unfortunately, I can’t get a publisher to commit to it. Keep your fingers crossed for me across the Pond.

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      2. I have had almost 30 rejections so far in the last year and a half, but I have to believe someone will want to see it done at some point in time! Luckily, I was in sales for almost 40 years, so I have a pretty thick skin! 🙂

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  6. Pingback: In this Case, Fiction is Stranger than Truth | Red's Rants and Raves

    1. Hi, Bob…Channillo is new to me, too – it’s like Netflix…you have to subscribe to it as a member before you can read the stories…check out Discover and Memberships on the site!
      Thanks so much – you’re always in my camp!! 🙂
      I miss our visits…

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