This morning in writing group the prompt was “Who do you want to be famous to?” and right away I thought, “Haha a lot of people” and then I felt a little ashamed and considered writing about a fandom more personal and tender. But then I realized all the other writers seemed too good-hearted and we were all making first impressions so to mix it up I’d have to ride with my first inclination.
I’d like to be famous to a small and reasonable group of readers, like five or six-hundred-thousand. Just enough so every story made me enough for a mortgage, yet where I could still slide in under the public’s radar. Maybe once in a while I’d be stopped on my way down an airport concourse and thanked for my profundity, or for shining light on some nascent idea, or eliciting gut laughter.
Fame is like an animal that I’d like to control.
I’d wanna find that golden balance of influence and income and incognition, and ride the crest of that wave all the way to having homes up and down the West Coast where I could go to and just putter out my stories, then sell a few hundred thousand of each to buy more properties. Not all my fans would want to buy every book, after all. I’m being realistic about this.
To my friends and family, I’d be the same old Jordan. Except, of course, there’d be a noticeable boost in regards to recognition and respect, so that they’d listen intently when I spoke and no longer look around like they’re bored when my real-life storytelling rambles because they’d remember how any one of 500,000-600,000 fans would be honored to stand in their place, conversing with someone so reasonably famous.
“You should run for Senator. You’re the kind of person this country needs,” is what some of my friends might say over Mai Tais and I’d get a sheepish face to offset their clarion call toward egotism and national leadership and respond, sagely, “Oh, haha, yes, thank you. I don’t wanna be that famous, though. I’m happy the way things are.”