Writing As an Escape

For me, it's that when I'm really absorbed in the work, time stops and the work is all there is.

It's not entirely escapism, at least for me, but more of an outlet. It's alone time, therapy, self-speculation, studying, and fun all rolled into one. I've also always been a ''creative'' person, coming up with stories ever since I was seven, but without putting them on paper I'll just daydream endlessly.

Yet when i was younger I would say it was an escape. Do I want to murder a bunch of college students vacationing on an island off the coast of France, or be marooned in space? Of course not, that's horrible. But I love B-horror movies, and SF, so that's what I've written. And in those moments that I'm creating, I don't have to focus on the other stuff in my life.

For me, time speeds up. Like, I start writing for one minute, and I look at the clock and three hours have passed.

I get what you mean, though. Most good books are a reflection of our world. But it counts as an "escape" because the characters are the ones dealing with the world, and the author's sort of like the torturer/"god" looking over it. Some authors do make themselves characters in their books, but it's still not the "real" themselves in the world they created.

Also, writing lets you feel free. No censorship, unless you decide to show your work to someone else or publish.

It is kind of an escape, for me, but not in the typical sense. I write fantasy, and my world-building literally takes me away for a while. A free mini vacation, if you will. I'm not writing wish fulfillment or anything, but the world is so real to me that when I plan/research/write everything tends to fade away for a bit.

I started writing because I had too much time on my hands, my mind doesn't stop working, I was heavily inspired and then, I wanted to keep these stories I created longer.


Now, it's like reading. Some people read to escape, I write to escape.

Between college, professors, side jobs, cleaning, cats, eating, drinking, pissing, defecating, mother, the chaotic world outside; I'd like some time to just F@#$ off and dwell into something that I'm partially living, learning from and experiencing.

It is an escape for me. Writing takes my mind off the hopelessness I feel about my life. It has nothing to do with what I'm actually writing as long as I'm absorbed in it.

There is some wish fulfilment in my writing. When you feel completely hopeless, it doesn't take much for something to be wish fulfilment. It's kind of like...writing is the only way for me to experience things, even fairly mundane everyday things, that don't seem to be possible in real life; it's the only way I can experience what life would be like if I wasn't severely depressed. The only way I can dream. Because I can't dream for myself.

I never thought of it this way and I wonder if it count because I already leave on my own world part of the time. I love to create and stories are my favorite subject. When I'm working on a story I'm completely there and there's no outside world, but running of the outside world is not my objective just a consequence. I write because I have too many ideas and if I don't work them out my mind feel to full. Make sense?

M.Macabre said:

It's not entirely escapism, at least for me, but more of an outlet. It's alone time, therapy, self-speculation, studying, and fun all rolled into one. I've also always been a ''creative'' person, coming up with stories ever since I was seven, but without putting them on paper I'll just daydream endlessly.

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I agree with Macabre.

As somebody who has struggled with clinical depression for years, writing has definitely served as a healthy outlet for me. It can be really cathartic at times, and as Macabre said, it is absolutely helpful in terms of self-exploration and writing does have, without question, a therapeutic aspect to it.

I'll also echo the other posters who have said that getting lost in one's work while writing is part of the magic of the craft. Whenever I need to get outside my own head and into one of the characters' (well, not whenever, but many times), all I need to do is pick up a pen and write.

I've never felt sufficiently imprisoned to warrant an escape.

I don't think of it as an escape, except in the sense that I get to say "I need to work and you (hubby and child) are distracting me, so I'm going to go sit in Starbucks" sometimes and literally use my job to escape the house. Ha! Probably not what most people mean by it.

I don't actually particularly love the process of writing (although I do not dislike it), but I love having written and I really love selling things, so I certainly have motivation to do it.

Sometimes I do write escapist stories, I guess, but not terribly often. I am pretty damn happy, and have little reason to want to 'escape'.

For me, reading is an escape. Writing is an outlet. These ideas and characters running around in my head and keeping me awake at night must get poured out.

Writing works as a coping mechanism for me.
Like I just found out my latest rag-tag vehicle has some major issues, such as the transmission going out.
My cousin has agreed to fixing it for pennies.
However I'm so broke I can't afford a pot to -- as Will put it.

So instead of fretting over what I can't control I get into the realm of what I can. So, writing helps me. Keeps me sane too.

Apart form that writing has enriched my life in a number of ways. Its granted me insight and the ability to pick things, even people apart and view them from different angles than what they present immediately. Its taken me places I've never been before, it has lead me to challenge taboos, expand my boundaries, meet new people, broaden my horizons, invest time in learning about things that are of no interest to me and increased my intelligence as a result.

Writing has even gotten me a german kitten to fawn all over.

I know some people view it as a means to get away and all that good stuff. But I'm one of those people to whom writing is a way of life, not a means of escaping it.

However fruitless that may be in terms of money...

I think when writers see it as an 'escape' it wrong to see it as a mark of Mary-Sueism. For me, it's when I can forget the preesures of work, bills and the world in general, and focus wholly on the work.

It's nice when the whole world falls away, and there is just you and the act of creation.

I don't write as an escape. I have a little vodka for that.

But I can understand how it is an escape for some or even many writers. You're in a diff. world for a while - sometimes a long time - and it gives you a break from your personal life. (If said personal life needs an escape from it.)

My personal life is stressful, but I don't feel I need to escape it. It is what it is. I deal and move on. Even when I had a fairly peaceful personal life, I still wanted and needed to write.

For me it's more of a 'need' than an escape.

jaksen said:

I don't write as an escape. I have a little vodka for that.

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Ditto that. I was thinking the same thing. Escape is bourbon. Writing is a production and creative outlet.

Think of life like exercise. You can ride a bike for cardio. You can lift weights for muscles. You can attend yoga class to improve balance and tone and de-stress. Ultimately they improve health. Not just one, but a mix of them all.

I have many creative outlets: photography, guitar, writing professionally and personally. I don't pursue those to escape. I pursue those because without multiple outlets that serve my moods, I would probably just suffer.

Writing allows me to justify my daydreams.

When I write, I'm not running away from something but running toward it.

It's an escape for me. But then, my career field is a heartless soulsucking thing sometimes.

When I was younger, before I stopped writing fanfiction and learned craft, it really was a kind of escape for me, like reading. In a sense, I miss that feeling. I haven't been able to really escape into a mansucript for a while now. Too many worries about whether I'm showing enough, or whether my sentence is clunky, or whether the story's just not good enough. The difference is that I'm writing with an aim to be published now, where before I was just writing for my own pleasure.

So, no, I don't really see my writing as a source of escape anymore. I kinda wish I could. :/

I have used it TO escape, sure. Bad relationship, bad fight, I turn to the writing and get lost in my world for a bit. It's not that I prefer to "live" in my world, but the act of writing can soothe me and take my mind off life's scariness.

For me it's a chore. I love having the ideas, but it's so hard for me to come up with the words that it's just a big chore. I want to be done with my WIP already so I can revise and then query and start something new.

To some degree that world I create and solving the problems I raise with the story is a sort of nice fantasy place to visit for a while but writing is just work.

I call my preferred sort of writing 'escapism', because I like stories that take place somewhere very different from my reality. If I want realism, I walk outside. (Of course, a dose of believability is expected, but believability in SFF is essentially high-quality and well-executed B.S.) I read SFF because I enjoy sinking myself into a world with different rules, and I write SFF because I enjoy making up worlds and rules of my own.

That's not to say I feel that I need to escape my real life. It's not all shiny, but it's alright. However, it's a lot less exciting than the lives of my characters.

M.Macabre said:

It's not entirely escapism, at least for me, but more of an outlet.

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Outlet--I like this word. I'm going to agree with M.M. on this topic.