After a recent chain of events, I have come to the realization that we can no longer use the words real and true interchangeably. What is real may indeed have happened, but what is true is only what happens in the way that we remember. Say, perhaps, you spent your morning walking to the corner café at sunrise, watching the same nonchalant faces you see everyday—real enough of an event—but, looking back on it in the evening, the sun seems more of a painting than it was, the faces seem more of a backdrop than they were, and you seem more peaceful than you were back when it happened. This memory may not be as real as the event, but we know it to be true, because you were there, and you are here, and you are the one writing the story.

I daresay a good work of fiction is…