Beyond The End

My novel critique groups gathered for our annual January brainstorming workshop. With almost an hour each, the six of us—one member joined us by Skype—presented our individual 2020 writing agendas. Cell phones on silent except for lunch and short breaks kept us focused. Well, maybe one brief distraction when aromas wafted from the kitchen near lunchtime. All six members are authors, earning that designation by publications in short-story contests and anthologies. Five, including me, have published at least one book. My first two were nonfiction.

Even with that experience, getting beyond THE END in my first fiction novel has been like a soap opera. Do you remember the longest-running soap? (Cheat sheet: The Guiding Light) Every radio broadcast ended with a cliffhanger followed by “Stay tuned.”  Today’s workshop prompted me to reevaluate my word of the year.  Revisit doesn’t fit my 2020 goals.

I chose a new word of the year.

 

Fact or Fiction?

My devotional writings are a combination of inspiration and Scripture. My memoirs are facts I recall from long ago. The mysteries call for intertwining fact and fiction. My long-held belief that the primary definition of “fact” equals truth disappeared when I consulted a printed copy of Merriam-Webster dictionary. Fact:

A deed; especially in a crime (accessory after the fact); actual;
something that exists or occurs; a piece of information—truth.

A crime-related deed in first place and truth in fourth—barely honorable mention—erases a thread of guilt created when I relocated the district county sheriff’s office from a nearby town. I plan to continue this ruse in a sequel, maybe a series. By then, it will become a factoid.

An invented fact that appears to be true because it appears in printed form.

If facts and factoids are half-truths, what is fiction?

 Something invented by imagination, such as a novel.

 I can combine facts and fiction with a hint of factoids in my suspense novel with no guilt. With multiple deadlines today, I jump from memoirs to devotions to suspense. Am I a memoirist, a biographer, or a novelist? I am a factotum. What’s that?

 A person having numerous or varied duties.