Why Escapist Literature?

Why escapist literature? Why not?

Es•cap•ism

–noun

the avoidance of reality by absorption of the mind in entertainment or in an imaginative situation, activity, etc.

I write what I like to read—fun books with great characters that take me away for a while, and bring me home stronger if only from having a good laugh. Who couldn't use a good escape? 

I don't believe a book has to make me miserable to be good for me. I don't think a spaceship—even one that travels faster than light and has false gravity—makes a book less worth reading. I don't think reading Big Fat Fantasy inhibits the ability to cope with the "real" world.

I do believe there are people out there like me. I believe it so hard that I write books for them. For you? I hope so.

I like movement. Action. I want to write dialogue that sparkles and stays with you like Joss Whedon’s. I want to yoink your heartstrings like that, too. I want to suck you in and take you somewhere else like Tolkien does. I want to etch scenes into your soul. When you’ve fought all day before the gates, and all you loved lies broken about you; when that impossible victory seems within grasp after all, but then dark sails dash what hope you had–I want you to think of Éomer. Now for wrath, now for ruin, and a red nightfall!

But maybe when you’re tongue-tied before someone who makes you yearn so much you might throw up, you could take courage from Taro. Maybe when life is kicking the crap out of you, you could catch sheer stubborn will from Eve. Maybe when you're on the edge of blowing, you could borrow compassion from Ben.

I want to plot all twisty like Lois McMaster Bujold, and I want my characters to stick with you like Miles Naismith Vorkosigan does with me. (I also want "What Would Miles Do?" tattooed on my forearm, but that's neither here nor there.)

I want to write the book you reach for when you need a favorite quote at half past your bedtime, the book you read bits of to your friends till they want to kill you, the book by your bed when life just keeps kicking you and you need to ESCAPE.

And I want my book to bring you back happier and stronger.

I do hope that's not asking too much.

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