I spent most of my life knowing that stories are about imagination, and exposing the nature of reality, not my own boring stupid life. But my lovely wife, Jan, spent 10 months telling me that she fell in love with me because of those beautiful stories I told her about myself. Yeah, the boring stuff. Jeez.
Finally, I decided I wouldn't write my story. I'd write Mom's story. She wasn't alive to write it herself, and hers was a story that needed to be told. Best thing I ever wrote. "Michael" is the first-person narrator, but he's a camera.
In China, a psychologist turned university teacher decided to form a women's reading group. All women writers, all women readers. But they made one little exception, since the first book they read was RISING FROM THE ASHES, which is the one I was just telling you about. I wasn't at any of the meetings, since I'm a guy, but Jan told me what they discussed. I'm so proud.
(Damn, where'd that wave of emotion come from?)
That book ended when I was 26. I wrote it when I was 38. It occurred to me that Mom never lived to see me masturbate boars for a living, so perhaps I had the makings of a comic sequel to some serious literature. After AN AMERICAN REDNECK IN HONG KONG, I eventually wrote about my life teaching in China, and after that I stopped writing.
So what held me back? Like I clicked in the survey, I didn't want to bore anybody. Not that such concerns ever stopped me from posting in this here forum...
