QotD: Writers as heroes

Netflix describes [Nim's Island] fairly accurately: "When the young island-dwelling Nim loses contact with her scientist father, she reaches out to her favorite author for help. Problem is, the writer — of adventure stories, no less — is a recluse who hasn't left her house in years . . ."

What is it with this recent mania of casting various writers, living, dead, or fictional, as story heroes? Don't people know how distracted and dissociative and generally unphotogenic we really are? There are *reasons* we live as we do . . . The ending of this one was sweet, but unconvincing, even though "and then the writer gets the scientist!" is deeply appealing. Although I did like the author's various interactions with her long-running series hero. "You've been working on Chapter Eight for three months! Either drop me in the bloody volcano, or figure out how I'm going to get out of this one!" "Quiet! I'm doing *research* . . ."

Lois McMaster Bujold, writing to the LMB mailing list, 2009-06-08