Fiction writing is not telling lies or being weird

I was speaking to writers last week and an interesting topic came up – the misconceptions about fiction writers and writing fiction. “Everyone thinks I am a teacher,” Muthoni wa Gichuru said. I think this is something that happens to many writers; people imagine that a fiction writer must have studied English and Literature, which translates to being a teacher.

In fact, some people think they can’t write fiction because they do not fall into this category. Certainly, this is not true. Some of the greatest writers are surgeons; others are engineers and so forth.