On Writing Fiction

I write fiction -- short form and long form, that is, novels. And I wouldn't devote so much time and angst in telling such whopping fibs if I didn't think there was some higher truth to be gained in doing so. I suppose all art is meant to bring order to chaos -- as the Creator originally did -- or at least try to make some sense out of the frightfully short dash between the birthdate and departure date on our tombstones. It's why we journal, too, isn't it? To seek meaning in the story of our apparently plotless lives. It isn't as much about 'self-expression' as a way to form the self in a way that aligns itself to the Creator, who has given us this impulse to imagination in the first place. So I plan to muse in this space about the art and spirituality of fiction, perhaps to justify my own writing of a murder mystery in the middle of a pandemic, when tens of thousands are dying from an invisible killer.