Truth and Lies

I am not a liar.

I’m not talking about daily life lies here. I can admire an ugly haircut with the best of them. Nor am I protesting that I’m too moral to lie in circumstances where the truth would get me into real trouble. I’m sure I’ve done that more often than I’d like to admit, despite being incompetent at it. (I have to plan lies very carefully, which is probably a dead giveaway.)

What I mean is, I’m not lying when I write fiction. I don’t subscribe to the common wisdom that fiction writer...