Matt doherty 95 Doherty attempted to write a novel when he first hit the road. The long hours and grueling schedule, however, drained his creative energy. The chapters were too hokey, he says. Fiction about life on the road was definitely not working. He believes that it is difficult to write fiction as something you really know.
Fiction has to be free to tell things completely differently.
In his case, he was too close to the situations to translate them successfully to paper. He decided to shelve the idea of writing fiction until later. His shift to nonfiction took great pains but the results have been more rewarding. The year and a half that Doherty spent hauling freight from one end of the country to the other was an education in itself. However, some of the experiences were harrowing to say the least.