Mission Statement: Why Does a Book Series Have a Mission Statement?

Why? Why a mission statement for a book series? Why?

Why the holy shenanigans does a book series need a mission statement? For the same reason anything else does: to explain what this series does for the world. Yeah, it does something.

In a nutshell

The world is bleak, and I created and continue to write In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy to balance that.

To make a long story longer

Just wait five minutes. You'll hear bad news from something: somebody did something to somebody else or some tragic something happened somewhere, and it had to be broadcast on something because bad news pays the bills for somebody. It's ridiculous sometimes what's out there.

Add to that that we fictionalize the bad news. We package it up into the next horror book or depressing movie based on this horrible true story. We slog through bad news and hate it so much we're willing to pay to watch it happen to someone else for a change. We want to read, watch, or hear about depressing stuff.

I'm no different. I love horror movies and bleak, depressing sci-fi futures where entire swaths of the human population were wiped out by armageddon X or apocalypse Y. I'm a junkie, too.

And longer

But at some point, it got to be too much. For me, anyway. Things were depressing after the story ended because the news was more than willing to pick up where the fiction left off. Life imitates art imitates life, right?

So what's my point? I created In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy to counter the bad stuff. We love reading angsty comics or books, watching movies where people are always at each other's throats in some dark story with the blue color filter has been lowered to give it that gritty tone. In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy is that counterbalance where everything's played for laughs. It's not here to make you close the book and question your values or open your eyes about the state of affairs in global politics. It won't show you anything to try to persuade you of something. It won't even change your life. In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy is the purest form of escape from life. For 150 or 200 pages, you get to come in, watch a bunch of characters goof off, and hopefully get a laugh out of it. Out loud if I'm doing my job right.

Sure, characters will get into sticky situations. There will be suspense. People will get punched, shot, stabbed, whatever. A face might even get in the way. But the sum total here is you get to forget life for however long you need to.

My promise to you

In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy is here to simply get you to forget your worries, to forget that out there is a world that might be waiting to take a big bite out of you. You had a hard day, and you might have another one tomorrow. Here's your respite. Here's your balance against the dark, gritty, dystopian, bleak fiction that's offered everywhere else.

So open a book and have a laugh. This is all here so you can crack a smile.