Monday, August 11, 2008

On living large

A couple of mornings ago, as I walked on the treadmill, a thought came to me: I want to live large. Unfortunately, the very next thought was What the hell does that mean?

Next, I found myself trying to imagine what it might like to be famous -- you know, to be recognized when you walk down the street, hear people whispering behind your back and pointing at you, have strangers come up to you and tell you how much they love you and love your work and they feel like they've known you their whole lives, yada yada yada...

I found myself trying to picture what "best-selling author" looks or feels like. I tried to imagine what it's like to have such name recognition -- heck, I'm just the purple panda here, but as a best-selling author? Hmmmm.

I'm not sure if or how this all chalks up to living large. I'm still not sure what I meant by that statement, and I'm not convinced that I'm not already doing so. And while I'd like people to buy my books and to like what I write, I don't want celebrity-brand recognition. I don't want to be gawked at, stopped on the street, followed, stalked, etc. I really don't want to be famous. I just want to make a living doing what I love and am good at.

I suppose living large is more of a state of mind than a set of circumstances.

4 comments:

Stacey Cochran said...

When I was at a reception in Denver over the weekend, I had a young writer whom I had never met introduce herself to me and say, "I've seen you on YouTube. You're the guy that does the literary agent query videos!"

Does that count as famous?

(More like infamous, I'm thinking)

Elisa said...

That's just plain cool, Stacey! (As long as she didn't follow that up w/ "It's like we're the same person..." hahaha)

p.s. Welcome back!

Gina Eaves said...

I love this post...because so many of the thoughts in this particular post resemble some of my very own!

I, too, wonder what it would be like to have some sort of celebrity status. Interestingly, I fear that I already 'live large' in so many ways, and that being a celebrity would jeopardize 'living large.'

However, I will say that 'living large' can be taken several ways...and if I continue to pig out on pizza and chocolate as I have done lately, will be living VERY LARGE!!! :-)

Elisa said...

Oh, I so know *that* kind of "living large"!!