And what is fiction, anyway? Anything imagined? Surely not. Consider metaphor. Consider accounts of hallucinations. Consider delusion, implausible superstition, etc. All well represented in the pages of essayists. Yet I can’t just slap a “I thought about this in my head” on the front page of a dragons-and-gold dollar-bin trilogy and turn it in for my nonfiction workshop, now can I?
Is a blueprint a fiction before the house is built? Probably not. Is it only non-fiction if the house does exist at some point? Does it become fiction if the house was altered in production, and the blueprint no longer quite fits?
Is this rhizomatic essay, in full or in part, non-fiction? If part of it is fiction, does that mean I failed to hit the wordcount?
My lawyer has advised me to redact any further consideration on this matter.