{"id":4229,"date":"2012-07-25T06:00:32","date_gmt":"2012-07-25T11:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=4229"},"modified":"2012-07-25T06:00:32","modified_gmt":"2012-07-25T11:00:32","slug":"take-my-hand-were-going-elsewhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=4229","title":{"rendered":"Take My Hand — We’re Going Elsewhere"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
A Young Girl Reading by Jean-Honore Fragonard c.1776<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It would be easy for me to tell you that I write because I have to \u2014 that it\u2019s in my blood and my heart, and I can\u2019t help myself. That wouldn\u2019t be true, exactly. I make up<\/em> stories because I don\u2019t know how not to. When I was a little girl, I told myself stories to fall asleep, and today I make up outrageous scenarios for people I see walking their dogs or sitting across a crowded restaurant.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t write those down. Making stuff up is not writing.<\/p>\n

I would love to tell you I write for the money, but it\u2019s too soon for that. Ask me again in a few years. Still, even if I were rich, it wouldn\u2019t be why I started writing. Anybody who starts writing because they think it\u2019s a good way to get rich quick is facing a huge letdown. That\u2019s not it either.<\/p>\n

I write because I read.<\/p>\n

Books take us to a magical place called Elsewhere. It doesn\u2019t matter if the place is filled with dragons, peopled by talking cats, or is exactly like our own world, but with new people we\u2019ve never met. What matters is that, for the duration of the story, we get to step out of our lives and into someone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a powerful thing.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re miserable in your own life, you can be someone else for a few hours. If you\u2019re bored, you\u2019re entertained. If you\u2019re stressed or worried about something, no matter how big or small, you can forget it for a short while.<\/p>\n

Whatever the reason for escape, books take us somewhere else. They help us cope. They make us smile or laugh or cry or think.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why I write. For every book that was there for me when I was sad or lonely or trapped or just plain listless, I wanted to give something back.<\/p>\n

Telling myself stories wasn\u2019t enough. I wanted to share them. When something I write makes someone smile or gives them a short reprieve from thinking about their taxes or takes their mind off their broken leg while they\u2019re stuck in bed, then I\u2019ve done my job.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t high art, here. I don\u2019t pretend to be writing literary masterpieces. This is entertainment. And entertainment can do a lot to keep us going. Sometimes our brains need to be quiet and stop thinking about all the things in our busy lives.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s magic in that escape you can\u2019t pay a therapist to give you. It can\u2019t be found in a glass of alcohol, a bottle of pills, or a frozen cheesecake. Those things are more fleeting and can leave you feeling guilty. There\u2019s no guilt in the pages of a book.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a small thing, sharing a story, but it can be so important.<\/p>\n

I write because sometimes we all need a little Elsewhere to make it through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It would be easy for me to tell you that I write because I have to \u2014 that it\u2019s in my blood and my heart, and I can\u2019t help myself. That wouldn\u2019t be true, exactly. I make up stories because I don\u2019t know how not to. When I was a little girl, I told myself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1251,1276],"class_list":["post-4229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writers-life","tag-why-i-write","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}