When I was eighteen, I wanted to be the Editor in Chief of the New York Times. This was not an ambition in the vein of “Oh, I’m going to be a spaceman!” type fantasies. This was me, methodically imagining how I would climb and summit that particular ladder.
I don’t actually want to be at the helm of the New York Times anymore, for two reasons. One, I’ve lost my interest in newspaper journalism, and two, jesus christ, that place is a writhing deadly snake pit. You grow up and you change dreams, be they spaceman or newswoman.
No, what I want now is far more reasonable. I want to be a novelist. I want to be a novelist of middling success and fame. If fame, for instance, is a spectrum, wherein I represent 0 and Princess Diana is a 20, placing Brad Pitt at about 15 and the Mayor of St. Louis at a 4, I wouldn’t mind hovering somewhere around 5.
That is to say, slightly more famous than the Mayor of any fair-sized Midwestern city.
Not so famous that I’m instantly recognizable from my dramatic airbrushed jacket-picture, or get to meet the President, or write a book about writing a book, or say snobby things on Oprah (Toni Morrison, I’m looking at you). Not so well reknowned that I chair a prestigious writing workshop. Not so successful that I own more than one house.
No, I don’t think that’s the life for me. I wouldn’t mind getting recognized by a particularly keen-eyed reader, perhaps once a year in a cafe or so. I’d like to be invited to speak on NPR one day. I would be delighted to teach writing at some leafy New England campus, where I become an institution and as I age, begin to develop a stable of endearingly idiosyncratic behavior like eating whole cantaloupes while teaching class or saying “what..OH” for no discernable reason during my lectures.
I don’t think I need an army of successful published books to feel like I’ve accomplished something. In fact, a couple duds is never a bad idea. Builds character, gives you something to laugh wisely and ruefully about during interviews or with budding novelists. Failure, public and published failure, keeps you anchored and makes your successes taste sweeter, I think. No, just half a dozen books for me would be great. Half a dozen times to stay up all night worrying about the reviews, half a dozen jumps of glee at seeing your name in print again, half a dozen schmoozy and stuffy release parties. Like I said – with a couple bad ones thrown in, it’s got the making of success.
That’s the thing – the making of success. I’m trying a lot these days, to figure out what kind of writer I am, what kind of writer I can become, where my happiness would lie and what would be false, untrue, unfair to my character or unrealistic to my style. I’m trying to grow, as Lily so famously put it in Hotel New Hampshire.
In fact, that nails it. I’d like to be like John Irving. I’d like to spend my life telling stories, writing them down, and seeing how they fly. No more. But also, no less.
Now where’s that genie?