"writing" Update

I began reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for class and thought that her introduction correlated with my previous thoughts about writing.  I am normally one not to read author's introduction because they tend to be pretty dry, but we have been focusing on them a lot in this class because they are an important part of the formation of the novel as a genre.  For example, Robinson Crusoe's first edition author's note is not at all by Daniel Defoe but by Robinson Crusoe himself.  He used the character as the author in order to gain higher readership by passing off his fiction as a first-hand non-fiction account.  In Mary Shelley's introduction, she writes the following:

"As a child I scribbled; and my favourite pastime during the hours given me for recreation was to 'write stories'.  Still, I had a dearer pleasure than this, which was the formation of castles in the air - the indulging in waking dreams - the following up trains of thought, which had for their subject the formation of a succession of imaginary incidents.  My dreams were at once more fantastic and agreeable than my writings.  I the latter I was a lose imitator - rather doing as others had done than putting down the suggestions of my own mind.  What I wrote was intended at least for one other eye - my childhood's companion and friend; but my dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free..."