There is something restful about reading. As one sits down to read, one intentionally tunes out the world and narrows one's focus down to the words on a page. And then, something almost magical happens... the pages themselves fade away and become a world all of its own, as real, in its moment, as dreams are in theirs. It may be a cliche for some, all the talk about a 'fictional dream', but that is, in a sense, what we are doing when we read. We are dreaming. In this dream, the pages cease to exist, and one can suddenly 'wake' at a chapter break and discover that three chapters have simply melted by, the headings unnoticed as the story played out.
After one has entered this dream world, there is a desire to enter it again- to meet the familiar faces again and watch them do familiar things and enter familiar struggles. It is the same reason we miss old friends with whom we did great things like climb mountains- or survived Junior High.
The same thing happens when one writes, but subtly different... the characters already exist, and come forth to drag the writer through this dream, and then the writer must write it as best they can. Not all stories make it to paper... some are merely daydreams that come and go or haunt the writer over and over again, but are too intimate or ethereal to set down on hard paper. A writer lives their life, however, surrounded by people that no one else ever sees... a chorus of possibilities and of deeds and places that demand attention. And yet, this, too, is restful. For all of them are friends, even the villians, of the writer. All of them wish to have their stories known, after all, and that is what the writer is there for. It's an adventure, but one's body never gets tired, and, when the mind tires, one can stop and do something else for a while, then come back again.
Each book is a new life and a new world, or a meeting again of old friends and catching up on the news. Perhaps this is something teachers of books have forgotten... perhaps it is something they never learned. The books they say are good for us are often, I have found, the hardest to enter, while the books that I love to read and re-read are "mindless trash". They say that reading cannot be simply an act of suspension, but rather an act of suspicion- one cannot trust the writer- they are promoting their own plans and ideals. Nonsense... say, rather, one cannot trust the characters- and one cannot always trust them. They are falliable and often wrong-headed, going in directions that are often the opposite of that which they ought to. And we love them.
How do I conclude this? With a note of concern? With a cry of 'blasphemy!'? No. With a hope that my poor abilities will enable those phantoms that plague me to live for someone else. That is my hope as a writer. That is why I write.