During my commute this morning, I flipped on NPR in the middle of this story: Vampire Slayer Buffy Saves Iraq Reporter’s Soul by Jamie Tarabay. NPR sums up the piece thusly:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer saved the world and the sanity of NPR’s Jamie Tarabay while she was in Baghdad. Tarabay explores why she needed the slayer during her time in Iraq.
This article illustrates one of the main reasons I want to write. I want to give people an escape from their lives — heck, that’s why I read when I was growing up — but also because I believe in heroes. Not the shiny perfect people you think about when you hear the word “hero,” but the imperfect, struggling humans who, despite everything, are still trying to do the right thing. Heroes like Buffy and Willow and Xander, and like journalist Jamie Tarabay and writer Joss Whedon, and like countless other folks who face their Big Bads every day and say bring it.
Upshot? I’m going to keep writing my heroes. There’s no such thing as too many.