When did you first experience 'book escapism' and do you have a three chapter rule?

Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl were the first to inspire me to write, even though Enid Blyton is probably a below-average writer. Something about her books capture children's imaginations.

I don't have a three chapter rule or any particular rule. I will delete a book from my Kindle immediately if there are SPAG errors early on. Otherwise I'll give the author a chance to set up the story until I feel "this isn't going to get any better." That can happen a few chapters in or 1/4 of the way in.

 

I adored those! But then I tried to read them again in my mid-teens and I couldn't stop seeing the exclamation marks! At the end of every sentence! It was impossible to read!

 

I'm showing my age now, but this - in particular one of the stories called The Land of Nowhere. I read this one story every single night, for about 3 years solid. Can't remember how old exactly... about 23 maybe . No, I jest, I was probably 7 - 8.



You know what's really strange, though? The first thing I do when I buy a new paperback is flicker the pages under my nose, and they smell EXACTLY the same as they did when I was a kid. This smell will remind me of one of two things; the books I used to read as a kid, or the 'arts cupboard' from infant school, which was a blend of crayons, chalk and plasticine.

 

I remember being an avid book reader around 4-5th grade and really seeking book escapism at around 10, meaning I looked for books outside of school reading. I'd also had a breakup with my best friend and was a bit of a social outcast thereafter (didn't fit in any of the cliques and was bad-mouthed to others by said former friend) so it makes sense. Without Francis Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess and A Secret Garden I might have become bitter. They were healing books at that time and they gave me the determination to keep the spring of kindness within me alive.

 

I think my first experience would be with that old children's series Magic Tree House.

Best series evarrr.

 

I'd have to say that, for me, it was Post Office by Bukowski. I read when I was younger, sure, but nothing really stood out to me. Everything seemed to be a bunch of far-off, unrelatable accounts of fanciful stories. But once I found Bukowski's work, things started to make sense. It was a gritty, true reality. It was around the time I started reading his books that I got back into writing myself.

 

Ham on Rye is beautiful, isn't it? I know that's not a word you immediately think of when talking about Bukowski's writing, but it is.