Welcome back to the Front Porch.
Please pull up a chair for a few minutes and make yourself comfortable. Today I’d like to make a confession — one that may permanently damage my reputation as an honest fellow.
I’ve been lying to perfectly nice people for years.
Professionally.
Now before anyone becomes too alarmed, I’m talking about the respectable, old-fashioned kind of lies. The harmless sort that begin with, “Once upon a time . . . . “ and somehow end with everybody smiling.
Mark Twain is often credited with saying that if you want to become a good fiction writer, you must first become proficient at the art of lying. Whether he actually said those exact words or not, I’ve never been entirely sure. But I’ve always had a difficult time believing he’d object to the sentiment, and cannot argue with it myself.
The longer I’ve been writing, the more I think there may be more than a little truth hiding inside that mischievous observation.
After all, I’ve spent years convincing otherwise sensible people that a talking bear in the Ozarks backwoods wears overalls, a bloodhound interviews a talking mule, a goat develops an unhealthy appetite for hats, and somewhere in a fictional place called Honey Hill Country there are folks who seem just a little more interesting than anyone has a right to be.
And the surprising part?
People keep believing every word.
The curious part isn’t that writers tell these respectable lies.
It’s why perfectly sensible people keep smiling . . . . and asking for another one.
And well . . . . that’s where the real story begins.
The Front Porch by James Milson 