The Artist's Life: There Is No Fiction

(There. I called myself an artist. Take that, world.)

We live this shit, we don't just pull it out of thin air. You think I can make up a story like "That Hurt Never Heals?" It comes from deep down inside.

There is no work of art that doesn't come from a place of the artist's life. You think my favorite writers (Bukowski, William Goldman, and Dave Eggers) make this shit up? They live it. And for a writer, it winds up on the page in one form or another.

But it has to start with real life. I can't understand the writers who spend all day holed up in their writing places, punching at the keyboard. If I didn't live outside The 'Pent, I wouldn't be alive on the page.

There really is no fiction.