This week, I am featured on one of my most favorite blogs, "Bitten by Paranormal Romance", with a guest post! If you don't know this awesome blog yet - it's packed with book reviews and giveaways -, I can highly recommend it.
You'll find the original post here and a Midalah's new review of "Virgin Dancer" here. Special thanks to Laurie for inviting me again.
Step into my World
Before I started to write myself,
I worked as an editor and translator of romance novels. It was the job of my
dreams, since I've always enjoyed reading, and this gave me not only the
opportunity to enjoy many books from different genres, but also enabled me to
get to know how they are structured, what is elemental to a story. More
importantly, I learned what readers expect from a book. A plot and interesting
characters are elementary, but the real challenge for a good story is that it's
supposed to take the reader into another world for the entire length of it,
starting from page one.
It's all about escapism. God
knows we need it nowadays, especially young people who struggle with getting a
decent education and a career, or hard-working mothers who run their families
like a tireless, multi-tasking robot each day. They have a job, loads of
housework, take care of their children and elderly family members while they
often neglect their own wishes and needs. I have learned that those women are
my most faithful readers; they give me incredible, heartwarming feedback. "Thank
you for helping me escape for a while," is something I often read in my
readers' messages, and to me as a writer, it's the biggest compliment
imaginable.
But is escapism a good or bad
thing? (Naturally, escape can also be experienced through watching movies, TV
shows or other forms of entertainment, but being an author, I'd like to talk
about books for now.) There are people who'd argue that such avid readers
prefer to live in their own worlds - or, in the case of a fiction book, in a
world a writer created for them. But this world, whether it's fantastic or very
close to reality, lingers on in their minds long after they finish reading; it
feeds their own inner world, the childlike part of their soul that's still able
to be in utter awe of a breathtaking sight, believing that whatever they are
craving for can actually happen. Sometimes astonishing creativity blooms after
readers lose themselves in a compelling story - there are myriads of talented fan
fiction writers and artists online who got motivated by a book they
particularly liked in the first place.
Now this can't possibly be a bad
thing, can it? Don't have a bad conscience if you like to escape for a while. We
all need to from time to time. You've earned your own private fantasy, and it
will give you renewed strength to face life when you need to get out of bed in
the morning. Because the world you found in a book will linger inside you,
still filling you with joyous wonder and hope long after you turned the last
page.
