Gridbook Fiction

This blog has become a fascinating place for essays and discussions on arts, culture, death, politics, community, and practicing medicine. So, I suppose I should mention my fictions. While I have been writing fiction as long as I could write, I have been much more private with my fictional works than my essays.

Fiction is more difficult to reveal to the world. Fiction is more subjective, but unlike poetry which is exclusively personal, fiction seeks to engage the reader with story out of the writer's imagination. Fiction reveals what the author feels to be meaningful, terrifying, and beautiful. But unable to speak directly about such transcendent things, the writer weaves them into a story and then gives the story to a reader. As Flannery O'Conner said, “You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate.”

There is also the risk of appearing foolish. Saying I hope to publish novels someday sounds like someone saying they hope to be a movie star—a pipe dream and a magnet for mediocre talent. Despite all of my years of working on my fiction, I still often doubt if any of the pieces are good enough to present to readers yet.

But I have spent too much of my life on this writing (much more time and energy than I have spent on this blog) to keep it hidden due to my own insecurities. I can only improve my skill as a writer by putting my fiction to the test of being read. So I have created the page Gridbook Fiction to be the literary sister site to The Gridbook Blog. Right now it only has a few stories (and one downloadable eBook) but I expect to add more over time.

Feel free to read if it interests you.