Goodreads asked P.J. MacNamara:

What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

P.J. MacNamara I don't know whether this applies to everyone that writes fantasy (in the broadest sense, not just with elves and goblins!) but part of the reason I write is because I want to take time out from real life. It's escapism. For me at least, reality and fantasy are always intertwined to some extent, but the truth is that in my opinion, any book based too closely on any aspect of my real life would turn out to be a bit of a downer, and who needs that? I don't want people to think I'm looking for sympathy or something, and beyond that, there is no denying that two or three billion other people in this world have probably suffered more rejection, failure, underachievement, pain, loneliness, disappointment, despair, injustice and so on than I ever will, so have I really got the right to complain? I don't think so. If you're going to single out something relevant and compelling from your life to write a book about it needs to have closure, resolution; it needs to end well in some sense, it needs to offer hope, show that a corner has been turned - it can't just stop abruptly for no good reason or linger on ad infinitum. In a book, there has to be something to gain from the suffering one endures, and in real life, sadly, one often gains nothing from specific incidents, except perhaps experience and wisdom. It's often been said that before you can write well you really need to have lived, and I think I can safely say I've done that, but the more unpleasantness and uncertainty I'm forced to live through, the less inclined I feel to write about any of it. I can only hope that the current chapter of my life ends more happily than most of the previous chapters did.

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