In fact, I always assumed that most everything I read was true, to one degree or another. I couldn't articulate this fact until after I read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and he discussed Happening Truth, Story Truth, and Emotional Truth. I always understood that the facts of The Sun Also Rises or On the Road were the facts as dictated by a certain narrative structure, but because the experiences of those characters echoed my own feelings about the world. I knew there was a Happening Truth behind them.

Curiously, the balance seems to come when writing is woven into every aspect of my life, like eating or exercising - one flows constantly into the next: I'll wake up and have coffee, read the news, then write a letter or two (always in longhand), then go teach, and after teaching write a bit in a journal - dreams, what I had for breakfast and lunch and why I had it, what's on the iPod, sexual habits, etc. - then read a bit, then work on a real bit of writing...you get the idea.

I view my stories as sexual or personal. Curiously, I don't. When I was writing those stories I thought of them as comedy pieces in the vein of performance monologue, such as you might get with Richard Pryor, or Lenny Bruce, or George Carlin. So I don't feel vulnerable because I know the line of demarcation between "Writer Kevin" and "Narrative Kevin."

As I've picked up more responsibilities in life, I've found nearly every one of those extra burdens drains me in a way that makes writing more difficult. That may not be the case for everyone - I know plenty of writers and artists who seem to have energy in abundance for all the facets of life; but are they producing anything worthwhile?

That being said, if you slept with me and are filled with shame at the possibility of the world knowing, then you should have considered that before you hopped into bed with a writer.

Of course, I don't mean to imply that all writers are working in the deep waters that border on the divine. Most writers are just trying to pay the bills, like anyone else - Stephanie Meyers is the literary equivalent of a television evangelist. Fork over twenty bucks and she'll help you forget your troubles for a while. I certainly don't fault her for her success, but I hope she has no illusions about the quality of her craft or the longevity of her efforts.

Most writers are lazy intellectuals, and it's a goddamn shame because a writer with an audience has a moral responsibility to make readers think about the world in a different way than what they're used to. Why else would you pick up a book if not to inhabit another realm of existence for a while?