i've never written fan mail before

I just finished the book Pegasus by Robin McKinley. it was … incredible. just like everything she writes. I “liked” her page on facebook, added her blog to my favorites list, and posted this on her wall:

When I reach the end of your novels I am generally shocked to remember that I am reading a book and that good writers have the freedom to end their novels whenever and however they like. I closed Pegasus about ten minutes ago (after staring helplessly at the last few blank pages for a minute or two) and got online praying to see an announcement, or even a rumor, of a sequel. I won’t *like* being troubled for two years, but at least there is hope for resolution.

Thank you for continuing to tell fantastic stories.

… I’m not-so-secretly hoping she replies to me. #bigdork

She's on the list of authors I want to be like one day. Not in the sense of copying their writing (because that would be silly) but because she, among a few others (Gail Carson Levine, Megan Whalen Turner, Tamora Pierce), has a way of writing that draws me in so completely that sometimes I really do forget that I'm sitting in the breakroom at Starbucks and I have to be back at work in 7 minutes. I'm always mildly embarrassed to admit that I read "young adult fantasy fiction," and more so to admit that sometimes I need to read them in the privacy of my room, where I can allow the story to take me somewhere else, and I can allow myself to be completely and emotionally involved in the story.

And then I remember that there are authors out there who continue to write these novels, and write them for people like me. And that they also want to be whisked away to a foreign land and spend enough time there to fall in love, and come back to the world with new ideas and new memories--and that, in the end, is why they keep writing.