I’m not going to lie to anyone and say we’re not living through worrisome times.
Of course, maybe all times are worrisome times. Sometimes I think I should do what Heinlein did during WWII and only read news two weeks old so the urgency isn’t there. Then again if I tried to do that, the world would go to heck in a handbag.
So, instead, I do what I can. If I’m truly exhausted — a lot of the time — I read Jane Austen fan fic, but what I really like is to find a new series and lose myself in it for a few weeks.
Sometimes it’s stuff dimly remembered from my youth, like the world of tiers, but here’s also stuff I really enjoy re-reading, and the most common are Nine Princes in Amber and Prince Roger.
And sometimes you stumble onto new stuff that does it for me like that, the last one being Space Station Noir.
I only realized this year that not only is that what I’d like to write, but it’s the only thing I want to and need to write: worlds that are completely immersive and take you away and you have trouble letting go when you’re done reading.
Can I? I don’t know.
But I do know it’s a heck of a thing to realize at 61.
All I can tell you is, in whatever time I have left, I’m gonna try.
And maybe, just maybe that will help someone — if I’m lucky a lot of someones — come through these worrisome times remembering love, hope, kindness, heroism, and best of all that sparkling sense of being alive such fun, immersive, challenging series give you.
Mad Genius Club 
18 responses to “A Place To Go”
Agreed. I seek out worlds I want to live in (at least vicariously) as much as possible these days. And I actively try to make my own books such worlds, too.
I write places that have problems, but problems that are solvable. Bureaucrats are still irksome, teenagers are still bundles of frustration for the adults around them (sometimes), but the good guys win, the places is interesting to visit, and failures lead to learning and success. People meet people and fall in love, and live pretty-well-ever-after.
And there’s a sense-o-wonder about the world, with neat things around the corner and gold at the end of the rainbow. Because that’s what I want to read, too.
So say we all.
I just make this world over the way I want it. ~:D Something annoys me? I nuke it from orbit in my next book.
I heard Sarah Hoyt say one time that there’s no wrong way to do this writing thing. I’ve been doing it as wrong as I can, but it is still working. ~:D
Same here, albeit with fewer orbital weapons 🙂
Here’s a notion: fantasy world orbital weapon.
“Hey, Cthulhu! Look up!”
Sounds awesome! Maybe not in this setting, although book 3 is probably going to have a fantasy nuclear-powered gundam. The just-started space regency takes place in a fission cluster in a xenosystem’s asteroid belt and includes teleporting asteroids capable of incinerating other asteroids when necessary.
Correia played with that in one of the Son of the Black Sword books.
Yeah. Mental escapes. I am irritated to find myself writing good guys escaping from/overcoming bad guys at every level, right now, at the family level. World? May i please get back to exploring? Or maybe good family fighting together?
And Sarah? After the satisfying sigh at the end of Space Station Noir. I gritted my teeth and tried his superhero series. How bad can it be, right? Same insane action level, fight, run, get caught, escape, rescue . . . Magic cats, Demon dogs . . . Turned out to be great fun. Recommended.
Dan liked it. I haven’t tried it yet. Been afraid to. His standards are low….
My very shallow dips into the genre had me doubtful. And now Ringo’s writing one. And it is very John Ringo.
Oh, John Ringo, no. Just no. Siiiiiiigh.
Its’ good. his muse came back….
Not *that* John Ringo. No, this is fighting, shooting, blood, gore . . . you know, *that* John Ringo. As opposed to the Arthur Mayor version, where the hero is horrified by one of the gang killing a serial killer.
I write stories in places that other people don’t seem to want to go to.
These days, that means things like hope. Dreams. Faith. The belief in a tomorrow that is better than today.
That love is possible, no matter who you are and who you’re with. And it’s a healthy sort of love.
That evil-regardless of shape or form-will be beaten and beaten in such a way that it won’t come back the same way again.
Wonder is a big thing right now. I’ve been writing some little drabbles about my main characters discovering new things-places to eat, stores to explore, people to know.
I don’t need cynicism, disaster, chaos, and the failure of things due to entropy. I can look out the window and see that.
I mean, you kind of have that with both Shifters, and at least potentially with Rhodes.
Whereupon I ponder how when I drew upon the story with necromancers for vignette inspiration, the one where the young hero was a slave of necromancers was often greeted with interest.
Whoops! I meant to put that one in the Hard Limits. OTOH, that was early in the story.