I hate writing research papers. I'm completely restricted to telling the truth. Oh, I don't mind doing the research. It's often quite interesting. But as I begin to smash together all my findings on paper, I want to change things. I start to invent conversation in my head and must restrain myself from writing it. If I could, I would chop up the facts and rearrange the stories into something more interesting than wartime ideals and patriotism. As I write these thirty pages about World War II and Stanly County, NC, I feel like I'm lying. In a way I am. I was never one to be objective in telling a story. You have to be sneaky about it, making it look like you're objective and unbiased and without prejudice. But really, what you're composing is a big, huge lie that tells about reality more than the truth ever could. That's what fiction is. Or that's my type of fiction. That's what I'm devoting my time to when I'm not reading or writing for school, which is always. As soon as this semester is over, I'm going to spend the five weeks afterward in this room. I'll be quiet as a keyboard. I'm going to allow my beard to come back for the fifth time. After sunup I will take pictures of dew and grasshoppers and count squirrels at the park. Then I will come home and write this crazy book I started.
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