No, My Novel is Not My Diary: Stop asking me if my fiction Is autobiography

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Photo by Mikael Blomkvist—Pexels

There’s one question that makes me want to roll my eyes so hard they disappear into the back of my skull and give you a great big fat face palm:

“So… is this autobiographical?”

Let me rant for a minute.

First, it’s invasive. You’re not asking about the story, you’re asking about me. You’re trying to sniff out where my scars are, which characters are my family in disguise, and whether I secretly had an affair with the villain. And honestly? That’s none of your damn business.

Second, it’s ignorant. Fiction is not autobiography. If you want autobiography, that’s called memoir. Different shelf. Different project. Different set of artistic responsibilities. If I wanted to do that, that’s what I’d be doing. I’m interested in making meaning of human dramas, not navel gazing (does the world really need yet another Eat, Pray, Love?).

Third, it’s naive. Because even when fiction grows from the compost heap of a writer’s lived experience (and it always does), that doesn’t mean the story on the page is “about me.” It means I’ve alchemized the raw material into art.

Here’s what differentiates fiction from autobiography (and why it matters):

Fiction is transformation. 

The writer takes life—their own, other people’s, the collective human mess—and distills it, reshapes it, stretches it until it becomes something larger than a single lived experience. Memoir looks inward; fiction radiates outward.

Fiction is universal. 

In memoir, the writer is the protagonist. In fiction, characters are vessels—archetypes, shadows, mirrors—crafted to invite the reader into the meaning-making.

Fiction is freedom. 

In memoir, the author owes allegiance to what “really happened.” In fiction, truth lives in the emotional resonance, not the factual accuracy. Fiction allows for invention, exaggeration, metaphor. It gives us worlds we’ve never seen, time machines, and whole families who never existed but feel achingly real.

So when you ask me if my work is autobiography, you’re not appreciating the craft. You’re reducing it. You’re tugging the focus away from the architecture of the story, the themes, the imagery, the impact, and you’re sticking your nose into my personal life.

And honestly? That’s lazy reading.

If you want to read a writer’s work deeply, ask better questions:

  • What themes haunt this book?
  • How does this character’s struggle illuminate my own?
  • What did this story stir up in me, and why?
  • What questions does it leave me holding?

That’s the conversation worth having.

This is the soil where my fiction grows: experiences transformed into meaning, pain transmuted into art, threads woven into something bigger than myself.

So no. My fiction isn’t autobiography. My fiction is fiction. And if that disappoints you? Maybe you’re more interested in gossip than literature.

My fiction doesn’t reveal me. It exposes you—if you dare to pay attention.

The Empty Closet: How a childhood memory became the seed for a short story

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I recently wrote a post about why I despise being asked if my fiction is autobiographical and what it can’t be… Because fiction is fiction.

And… as I say in that post, while all fiction writers draws from their own lives, they use those experiences as seeds for stories that do far more than a simple, navel gaze-y re-telling of their own. Yawn. Boring.

One of my goals is to help enlighten those who don’t have a clue about the difference. And so, for all you gossip mongers who think you have a right to pry into the personal lives of others…

Here’s another tantalizing real-life story seed from my life—the one that planted my short story, Just Like in the Movies.

The story centers on six-year-old Josie Jones, who learned everything she knows about love from old movies. Her favorite? Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Where did that idea come from?

My own life.

I was eleven the day my dad left.

I came home from school and found my grandma at the kitchen table. She lived next door and was always around. But that day, something was different. I could tell she was sad. When I asked her why, she told me. “Your dad… he left.”

And here’s how he did it.

He left a note. A really, really short one. I think it said something like: “I can’t be here anymore.” Period.

I remember running to my parents’ bedroom, opening his side of the closet, and seeing a row of empty hangers. That image branded itself into my mind.

Josie’s story sprouted from that image.

But that wasn’t the only piece.

Several months before he left, my dad took me shopping. We stopped at a diner for lunch, and our waitress turned out to be the woman he was having an affair with. The woman he left us for.

My dad must’ve had some really big balls. Or really tiny ones. Depends on how you want to frame it, I guess.

In Josie’s story, I borrowed more directly from my own life than I usually do. But I layered in more. Like Josie learning everything she knows about love through old movies.

That piece was pure invention—something that made the story larger than my own memories, and also took me back to my days of teaching argumentation and rhetoric (the impact of pop songs, movies, and romance novels on young girls’ beliefs about romantic love was a hot topic in those classes).

In fact, I had never seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s, so I had to watch it to to get the details right. Doing that—thinking about my own experience, and all the young women in my classes and the essays they wrote on the subject—let me explore the bittersweet way we inherit ideas of love and family that rarely match the messy truth of life.

There’s more to Josie’s story, but I’ll save that for later. (I’ll be posting it soon for paid subscribers.)

Here’s how my real-life story played out: within a year and a half, my parents divorced, my dad married the waitress, and then left her when she was eight months pregnant so he could remarry my mom. We packed up our lives in Illinois and moved to Colorado. (I guess they thought you could run away from the messes you make. Of course, they were wrong.)

And yes, there’s another twist involving that baby—my half-sister. But that story deserves its own telling.

So, here’s my question for you:

What’s one image from your own past, seared into memory, that could serve as the beginning of a fictional story?

I’d love to know…

Opens the notebook wide, leaving space for your words to land.

The Pumpkin: Keeper of Thresholds, Vessel of the In-Between

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Hollow vessel of thresholds, the Pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo) swells with the breath of transition. Born of earth and sunlight, it embodies the balance between plenty and decay, spirit and soil, the living and the remembered.

Round and radiant, the pumpkin carries with it the essence of in-between—neither fruit nor vegetable, neither wholly earthbound nor entirely ethereal. It swells beneath the waning sun of autumn, a symbol of abundance and decay, threshold and transformation.

Modern Symbolism
The pumpkin resides in the liminal space—between life and death, harvest and dormancy, feast and famine. Once carved to ward off wandering spirits, now it brightens doorsteps as a sign of welcome and warmth. It is the emblem of endings that promise renewal.

Medicine and Healing
Beyond its folkloric glow, the pumpkin nourishes and soothes. Long used to support digestion, ease inflammation, and strengthen immunity and skin, it offers quiet medicine for the body’s rhythms. Yet, as with all potent things, balance is key: too much can unsettle the system or interfere with certain medications. Respect, always, is part of the ritual.

Stories of Folklore
Across cultures, the pumpkin’s lore ripens with the strange and sacred:

  • In Ukraine, to receive a pumpkin is to decline a proposal—a gentle, if symbolic, rejection.
  • Among Serbian Roma, pumpkins left too long may stir and rise again as vampires.
  • In Mayan myth, it represents the triumph of life over death.
  • Throughout Eastern Europe, it guards against misfortune and ill intent.

A Final Thought
The pumpkin is a vessel of thresholds—a reminder that the line between protection and peril, feast and famine, life and death is thinner than we think. Within its hollow heart, it holds both shadow and sustenance. To honor the pumpkin is to honor the power of the in-between.

Learn more about my upcoming novel, Miranda’s Garden, where plants whisper of transformation, and every seed holds a story.

The Death Rattle of My Old Self: They call it burnout. I call it becoming.

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Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/plants-under-starry-sky-355887/

I’ve been talking and writing recently about a state of mind in which I find myself. I’m not usually so forthcoming about the inner workings of my mind and soul, but lately I’m moved to shed a little light on this thing we call burnout.

First, let me say that yes—burnout exists. But I also think the term has been stretched so thin it now covers just about anything outside the ordinary rhythms of human life.

Fatigue.
Insomnia.
Brain fog.
Reduced productivity.

And the list goes on. And on. And on.

Sure, some of what we’re feeling right now is collective grief. We’ve been living under the constant hum of political and social trauma. Add to that the exhaustion of trying to navigate support systems that are falling faster than autumn leaves. And rising costs. And day-to-day threats we’ve never seen before.

Of course people are weary. How could they not be?

But I also think there’s something else happening. Something deeper. And no, not everyone will want to hear this—and that’s okay. The right people will. Eventually, we’ll find each other.

Here’s what I think:

“Burnout” has become a great big blanket term for a dozen different states of being. It’s lost its meaning. I’ve used it myself recently, mostly to explain to anyone wondering why I’ve been… a little quieter.

I’m attending fewer gatherings—online and off.

I’m saying less.

I’m engaging less.

I’m tolerating less. (And if you know me, you might be thinking, “What—so now you tolerate nothing?” You might be right.)

I’m backing out of commitments.

I’m questioning assumptions people make about me.

But the truth is: I’m not “burned out.”

I’m molting.
I’m shedding.
I’m deep in a process that feels a whole lot more like spiritual ascension than collapse.

Because here’s the thing: what we often call burnout is actually the death rattle of an old self.

It’s not about “bad boundaries” or “failing to rest more.” (Spare me the quartz-crystal pep talk or the link to your coaching program, please, so you can share with me all the ways I’ve failed myself as a sensitive person.)

It’s what happens when your spirit has simply outgrown the scaffolding of your current life—and starts shaking the walls to break free.

This isn’t exhaustion. It’s initiation.
The mind calls it burnout, but the soul calls it becoming.

And here’s the part most people don’t talk about:
This isn’t a one-and-done experience.
It’s not some singular dark night of the soul that you survive and then check off your spiritual bingo card.

It’s a recurring cycle in the evolution of a human being.
We molt. We grow. We molt again.
It’s not regression. It’s renewal.
It doesn’t mean you’re “behind.” It means you’re alive.

Yes, it’s messy. You might want to torch your calendar and start a commune in the woods. You might sleep too much (is that even possible?) or feel allergic to other people’s expectations—or to other people, period.

That’s not failure. That’s your nervous system trying to keep up with your evolution. That’s your soul integrating the alchemy.

So no—I’m not burned out. I’m not “in trouble.”
I’m transmuting. Metamorphosing. Reconstituting in a cosmic kind of way.

I’m in the alchemical fire, burning off what no longer fits. And when I come out the other side, I won’t be the same.

And after all is said and done, you might still like me.
And you might not.

And that will be okay.

Whips cape over shoulder and wanders off into the woods…

The Beauty of Burnout: Ascending from a plateau of latent potential

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I’ve been staring out the window a lot lately, staying prone, even sleeping more than usual. At first, I thought it was just the change of the season and my body’s dislike of Pacific Northwest winters—which, despite what the calendar says, last from October through May.

Today, it’s raining. There’s a tree outside my window swaying in the wind, its leaves dripping with the inevitability of the next several months. My body has slowed to match the rhythm of the season, but there’s more going on. I can tell.

I use the word “burnout” because I want to be understood—being understood matters deeply to me. I use the word “burnout” because I know people will understand it to mean profound emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion.

The word is spoken and discussed so often these days that I wonder if it’s lost some of its meaning. I wonder if it’s too easily shrugged off—by those who find themselves in the middle of it and by those who surround them. But it’s a serious condition, one that can impact well-being, productivity, and overall health.

For this reason, I’m not taking it lightly.

I’ve been here before. A few times. That’s what happens to us sensitive souls who live in a world not made for us, a world that doesn’t often accept our need for serenity, solitude, and rest.

But the truth is, when you’re delicately wired—when you live with chronic illness, when you’re neurodivergent, when you inhabit a world with sharp edges, toxins, and more stimuli than your nervous system can handle, not to mention the insanity of a wannabe dictator in the White House—your body, mind, and soul eventually say: enough.

They sit down and say “no” with all the vehemence of an angry, stubborn two-year-old plopping down on the floor in the middle of a busy mall during the holidays and refusing to move.

They say: Listen to me. Pay attention to me.

I’m paying attention. I’m taking it seriously. I’m paying attention. But I’m also not thinking of it as “burnout.”

Instead, I think of it as a kind of return. An ascension of sorts.

I’m stepping back. I’m purging—mostly obligations. And stacks and stacks of papers with scribbled reminders and lists of all the things I need to do (or thought I did).

While going through one of those stacks, I found a line I had written down months ago: plateau of latent potential.

It’s like my subconscious knew (of course it did) long before my just-do-it brain had caught up. I read those words, and I knew:

I’ve been sitting on yet another plateau of latent potential for too long. Once again, I had become so automated in my day-to-day life—doing what had worked once—that I hadn’t recognized that I’d outgrown myself.

This is why I call it ascension. It’s a time to rise. It’s a time to pull myself up and over the ledge to the next level of life. But first, I need to rest.

And I’m using this rest period to reflect and remember—to literally re-call everything that makes me, me.

One thing I love about aging is that because I’ve done this before—more than once—I know that I’ll come out the other side better, clearer, stronger.

And something wiser than my day-to-day cognitive knowing—maybe my own inner wisdom, maybe the Universe—is saying, All right… You’ve gotten too comfortable doing the same old thing. There’s more for you to do in this world.

So off I go, stepping back, reflecting, and purging—energy and activities—so I can come back around to myself. Only better.

In the Wise Woman tradition, the spiral represents ascension. We circle back over and over, yet each time, we never meet ourselves where we were before. Each revisit is a lift upward—to more awareness, more ability, more mastery.

While this ride can be uncomfortable, I find it beautiful. It lets me know that I’m still on my path, still open to growing, still moving toward the thriving existence I envision.

As creatives, as sensitives, as ever-evolving humans, I think it’s essential that we allow ourselves to behave like water. Ever flowing, ever changing, adjusting to every object, obstacle, and diversion we encounter.

Maybe that’s what burnout really is—a reminder to flow again. In the direction of a thriving existence.