Interchapter Report 3: Lying 101

And now he was ready to do what he’d set out to do: to practice lying so he could become a skilled liar. He started by imaging success: that he was a really good liar. He burst into laughter immediately. The idea was ludicrous. He repeated imaging he was skilled until he stopped laughing, then stopped giggling, then until he could imagine it with confidence. Then he imagined practicing lying. It took a while for him to image it, but he did. Finally he was ready to imagine lying

He started by imagining telling innocent lies to naive children; later small lies to older children; then small lies to oblivious adults. He worked his way up to telling whoppers to steely-eyed cynics sensitive to the slightest evidence of duplicity. And when he was good at that, he practiced telling the muse that he’d destroyed his work, then imagined dealing effectively with her possible reactions and responses.

The more he practiced lying, the better a liar he knew he was becoming.

Finally he was ready to face the music and face the muse and lie, right to her face.

He was about to look for New Chapter 1 when he had a brilliant idea.