SOURCE: Bass, Rick. “Why the Daily Writing of Fiction Matters.” In Why I Write: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction, edited by Will Blythe, pp. 74-83. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1998.

In the following essay, Bass asserts that fiction writing is important because it sharpens the perceptions and imagination of both the emotional and physical senses, and concludes that fiction has a healing effect on the world.

I live in a remote valley deep in the woods, and I must confess that when I go into town and encounter someone who asks where I live and what I do, for the longest time it was not entirely with pride that I would tell him or her I was a writer, and a thing I especially did not enjoy admitting was that I was a fiction writer. It seemed to me to be like answering, “Oh, I breathe,” or...