Escape Route

I have been in the odd situation of trying to navigate a new book release as the United States falls apart around me.

I want to comment everything that has been done since the 20th of January, but I can’t keep up.  I know hitting us with so much so fast is part of the plan to keep us discouraged and unable to fight back by overwhelming us.  I am doing my best to keep abreast of the major changes as best as I can while managing my day job and taking care of my mother.

(Side note – no more minting pennies? I get it in a way but I’m mostly shaking my head at the blatant hypocrisy. If any other president had suggested this, I know a bunch of Evangelical Christians would be screaming at the top of their lungs about how this was the beginning of the end of cash transactions and is the precursor to the Mark of the Beast.  I’m not plugged into that community any more, but I haven’t heard so much as a peep. And this is a minor example.)

And in the middle of this mess, I am trying to figure out the next steps for my writing career.  I will never be able to write books as quickly as some indie authors who are held up as examples.  I want to try to get better than two years between them, but until I retire, multiple books a year is an unreachable goal. Given what I write is also squarely in Project 2025’s crosshairs, I had to give some serious consideration about continuing writing. And in a moment of frustration, I posted online that I didn’t know what to do next.

But as a friend reminded me, “Yeah, but we NEED escapist fiction at a time like this, to stay sane.”

And she’s right. 

One of my favorite quotes is from J.R.R. Tolkien. “Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape? If we are partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”

So I’ll be here, standing with my BIPOC friends, my trans friends, and my queer friends.  I’ll be standing with my white sister, my mixed-race brother-in-law, and my mixed-race six-year-old niece. And I will be holding the escape route open by continuing to write books.

I’m not going to say that if you approve of what Trump is doing, that you should not be reading my books for enjoyment.  But I want you to ask yourself a question.  Why are you enjoying stories about the very people you are helping erase?