What does fiction mean to you? Is it meant to be entertainment, or should it be used as a vehicle for waking people up, conveying horrific information that many would not normally choose to know about? Sometimes one, sometimes the other? Or something in between?

I've been thinking about these questions lately. I have seen Schindler's List and American History X three times each and been deeply moved by both movies, and yet I walked out of Syriana a third of the way through, unable to watch any more. I know that one of the aforementioned movies is not fiction, and another is inspired by a memoir, but lately I've been left with a feeling that my fiction sensibility has been abused, with too many people trying to tell me stories that are really news casts on how awful the world has become. I'm wary of films that are nominated for Oscars now, because so often this seems to be a criteria for the award. We're overdosing on reality nowadays, and I worry that fiction will be the casualty.

Alerting the world to injustice and other serious problems is admirable. But one of the tenets of fiction is escapism and entertainment. A story can also make a difference to a reader simply by passing on messages of hope, and viewpoints that are positive and uplifting.

If it's well written, too, it has the right to be a memorable book.

Do you write to escape, or do you write to change the world? Or something in between?

Actually, I think I write to live vicariously through the main characters.

One novel I am working on is about a pastor who builds rescue missions all over the globe to help people and try to bring them to the Lord. In this book I am writing it is mainly focusing on one mission which is in a troubled city that is run by a drug dealer, basically and he is the leader of a powerful gang and the pastor runs into trouble while trying to build the mission and the twist is, that when he was a kid, he lived in this city and was a part of the gang with the same leader still running it and he doesn't know who the pastor is, but will find out.

It is my dream to do the same thing. Maybe not all around the world but in the city where I live. To build a rescue mission to help people who are homeless, jobless, or just plain lost.

Another novel in the works is about professional wrestling and focuses on one wrestler who is new to the organization and takes it by storm. That was another dream of mine. To be a professional wrestler.

So as I said, I believe I write these books to live out my dreams of sorts