Random Thoughts on a Friday

If I were a famous author...

One of the coolest and simultaneously depressing aspects of the web is the ability to connect - or seemingly so - with well-known people. I, for instance, am Facebook "friends" with some amazing YA authors who've sold thousands and thousands of books. Sarah Dessen, John Green, Megan McCafferty, and Maureen Johnson, just to name a few. They post links sometimes, or comment on their breakfast, posts which get retweeted hundreds of times and a thousand people "liking" them or commenting themselves on how much they too love breakfast burritos with extra cheese or wish they were eating said breakfast burrito with Famous Author right now!!!!

As a Not-So-Well-Known Author Who Aspires to be Bigger, I wonder what it's like to be a Real Famous Author. Of course, I'm pretty sure I know it's extremely cool to sell a ton of books and make bestseller lists and get awards but what about the other stuff:

1. What's it like having so many "friends" you need a fan page? So many blog and twitter followers that your every move is re-documented a thousand times over?

2. What's it like getting an email inbox full of fan letters? Do you get real ones too with paper envelopes and stamps?

3. Is it as cool as it seems to have people contacting you for autographs, school visits, sequels, and to purchase foreign rights for Uzbekistan?

4. Do you still love to write?

I've had a tiny, itty bitty taste of what it would be like to be Kind Of Famous. I've seen my Amazon rankings skyrocket when one of my books was mentioned somewhere popular. I've gotten a few actual letters in the mail and some emails from fans who loved my books and want to know more. I've spoken at a few schools and received requests to participate in authorly things and a couple of states even have my books on their reading lists, which is incredibly awesome.

I think I would happily accept the pressure that comes from being Real Famous. Not just because I've experienced the pressure of being Not-Very-Famous-At-All And Trying to Be Bigger, but because I do love to write.

So if the Universe needs an answer from me, bring it on, big guy, I'm ready.

Bid on me!

An update to my post about the German group requesting my autograph.

Well, now we know:

This is from eBay, Germany. Here is the page hyperlink if you want to bid or simply check out the other autographs this seller has. Maybe YOUR autograph is there too!

Ya know, I'm kind of disappointed. I had hoped that maybe the first group of autograph seekers really were fans of my books but alas, no, they weren't. I'm also glad I didn't send anything to anyone else who emailed me - not because they would have sold the items on eBay but because they would have saturated the market and my autograph would be worth less than the 1 euro it's selling for here.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1 euro.

Saturated market.

Please.

4 Famous Dead Authors I wish I could have met

1. Shirley Jackson
2. Douglas Adams
3. John Kennedy Toole
4. Franz Kafka

I just realized every one of these authors died young. Hmmm...

4 Famous Writers I want to meet

1. Anne Tyler - does not tour, does not give interviews, does not have a website. I love her books! She won the Pulitzer for "The Accidental Tourist" but I love many of her other books so much more: "A Patchwork Planet," "A Slipping Down Life," and oh, "Digging to America." Her characters are so true-to-life, so haunting (in a good way! they really stay with you long after you've finished reading).

2. Umberto Eco - Italian author, background is semiotics. Eco hasn't written many novels and the ones he has written are really hard to read - complex, intricate, and filled with references to arcane texts and historical figures. "The Name of the Rose" is a wonderful mystery set at a monastery in the 14th Century (the movie adaptation wasn't bad, with Sean Connery as the investigator) and long before there was "The Da Vinci Code," there was Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum," which I needed to use a dictionary to read. But more than his novels, I love his nonfiction essays ("Travels in Hyperreality" contains some of the funniest, smartest material I've ever read on philosophy).

3. Elizabeth Berg - prolific author of what many demean as "women's lit." Not chick lit. She writes for smart women: Oprah loves her ("Open House"). That is not a bad thing, despite what Jonathan Franzen believes. I find her prose tremendously accessible, her stories heartfelt and touching, her characters multi-faceted and flawed. Her books made me want to try my hand at first person POV. "Never Change" broke my heart. I adore her writing style.

4. Lemony Snicket and his creator, Daniel Handler - the series for kids, "A Series of Unfortunate Events" is a brilliant concept, dark, funny, clever but never pretentious. I've not read Handler's books for grownups because I've been so enamored of his Snicket's creations and I fear being disappointed. His work, along with the gorgeous illustrations by Brett Helquist, recalls Edward Gorey and Charles Addams, whom I adored growing up.