Writing a novel is the adult version of building a blanket fort
A (relatively) safe space made of words to escape inside
I’ve always read in order to escape the world. I take refuge inside books when things are difficult or chaotic. I was that one child at the family gatherings, sitting in a corner with a book, trying very hard to literarily teleport myself someplace else. Someplace magic, hopefully, but mostly just someplace different. A book was already a magic thing. If I held one and stared at its pages, it could act as a talisman…a ward. It became a warning to leave me the fuck alone.
It’s no surprise that I write at least partly for the same reasons. I write to create my own world and then—abracadabra!—I disappear inside the words.
I’ve been thinking about this lately as I’m deep inside writing yet another novel. Writing a new novel wasn’t the plan for my sabbatical which starts…well…today. The plan was to work on a book proposal and the sample chapters to go with it. Since I finished the stories in my collection (SEX OF THE MIDWEST coming out in Fall 2025 from
), I’ve mostly been writing nonfiction.I worked on a book proposal for a memoir about what it’s like to be a college professor witnessing the historic changes in the landscape of higher education (still looking for a home for that, if anyone’s interested). I started a proposal for a book about what sociology teaches us about how to live a good life.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be working on a novel. I just didn’t have anything that was calling to me in the way it has to in order to commit myself to 70,000 words. I wanted to be that absorbed. I wanted to lose myself in that way.
I survived the pandemic at least in part by writing the young adult novel that became FAIR GAME. I had the gift of time when the college shut down. I had a huge, terrifying, global event that all-in-all, I didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about. I had an idea that I’d been playing with.
The pandemic was, of course, a nightmare in so many ways. But I also remember the joy with which I would head up the stairs to my daughter’s spare bedroom which I was using as a writing space. I’d sit myself down at the drafting table we bought right before the pandemic. I’d watch out the back window as my husband began work on opening up part of our garage into what became the party pavilion.
I escaped into the world of that novel, where there was no pandemic. Inside the novel, things weren’t easy or safe. Things cannot be easy or safe inside a novel because hard and dangerous things are what make for an interesting novel. The characters inside that young adult novel suffered. But it was a suffering that I controlled. And it was a suffering that was much different than that of living through a global pandemic. In the end, for those characters, things came out mostly right.
The novel I’m working on now snuck up on me. I’d had a little idea I was batting around inside my head. Then I sat down one day and the words came out. Then the next day more words. And the next day yet more. This is exactly how easy and hard it is to write a novel. More words each day until you have enough.
Maybe the words have been coming out so easily because I tricked myself by writing the novel out with pen and paper. On actual paper, everything feels so much more like a first draft—complete with words crossed out and misspellings and lots of moments where I say, “What did I write there?”
Maybe it’s because with a sabbatical ahead of me, I have the space in my head and my schedule to sink into a novel. This possibility—that I could be writing all kinds of novels if it weren’t for that pesky job getting in the way—is something that makes retirement all the more attractive.
Or maybe this novel is flowing out of my fingers every morning because I’m in need of a place to hide away from the world. Since the election, I’ve been pretty good at avoiding the news. But I’d have to be a complete and total hermit not to feel the existential dread that seems to have become part of the air we breathe. Maybe this novel arrived when it did to give me an out.
Every day as I sit down to write, I remember that part of what’s appealing about writing a novel is just that—the ability to create a world to escape into. As I posted the other day, it’s like the grown-up equivalent of building a blanket fort in your living room as a kid. Inside the fort, it’s dark and it smells like fabric softener and your own breath. Yes, you can still hear your mom in the kitchen or your annoying little brother asking if he can come inside. But at least for a little while, you can pretend that none of that exists.
Inside the blanket fort, anything can happen. Exciting things. Adventures. Tragedies. Triumphs. Losses. But you’re in control of those adventures.
It’s not surprising that the novel I’m working on takes place in an earlier time period. It makes sense given the topic but, also, it’s a way to create a wall between what’s happening in the novel and what’s happening in the actual world around me. Inside my novel, there is no Trump or Elon Musk or looming inauguration.
Inside this novel there is a lot of heavy stuff. It’s a novel that’s very much about working through some of the hard things in my past. In the margins of the notebook I occasionally stop and write, “Why am I doing this to myself?” Writing a novel can bring you face-to-face with a lot of uncomfortable things.
But there’s a comfort in writing through the bad stuff. Whatever happens inside that blanket fort, I’m in control. I get to say who wins and who loses. I get to say how it all turns out. I get to pick through the pieces and then put it all together in a way that makes sense. It is always, in the end, my story to tell.
Do you remember the way the light looked from inside the blanket fort? Muted depending on how thick the blankets were? Do you remember the feeling of those fuzzy walls? What did you take inside there with you? A stuffed animal? Your favorite doll? Do you remember how exciting it was when the cat or the dog barged in, tail wagging and usually bringing the whole structure down around you, only to be built again in some totally new and exciting shape?
Inside the blanket fort, anything can happen. You can slay all the dragons. You can dig tunnels to the center of the world. You can glide through the stars. Inside the blanket fort, the world belongs to you.
Welcome to all my new subscribers! Last week, I posted about my New Year’s resolution to read and review one book by a small press each month in 2025. I’m still looking for recommendations, so please send me all your favorite small press books. Yes, of course you can recommend your own book. I assume that if you wrote it, you think it’s pretty great.
Because I will be buying all these books, it would be great to offset some of the cost with paid subscriptions or donations to the cause, here.
Thanks again for being here and if you’re in the path of the winter storm, stay warm and stay safe and enjoy the snow!
I love this post; it resonates with me on a deeply personal level. You see, writing my current novel has been my escape from chemo treatments, hospital visits, and all the other fun stuff that comes with a leukemia diagnosis. I lost myself in a galaxy of my own creation. In fact, I would even argue that the motivation to finish my protagonist’s story is helping me fight this disease—a mutual agreement between reality and fiction, if you will. I just want to say, genuinely. Thank you for writing this post. It’s seriously made my night.
-Toni M
Terrific post! Nothing like being in the middle of a novel to keep the real world at bay.