I am almost there. I can pretty much taste it. It’s a very short matter of time before I close the gap between myself and Jayden K. Smith and become the world famous writer you all knew I would be. I have spent an unreasonable amount of time, sandwiched between reading “You Are a Badass” (highly recommend) and writing stories about Billy Ray Cyrus (don’t worry, he’s not really changing his name), obsessing over how to get people to share my writing on the viral scale that Jayden K. Smith’s hacking threat spread. Maybe if I was more threatening. Maybe if I had hacking skills. Maybe if I had a name like JAYDEN. Then I would be famous by now. I thought about shotgunning out a blog link out to every single contact I have on Facebook. (In case you didn’t know how pseudo-popular I am, that’s about 628 people, give or take the ones that will unfriend me after my most recent blog post wherein I didn’t capitalize The Lord’s Name.) (I apologize.)
If I shotgunned out a blog link with a minor threat of 14 years of bad luck or puppies dying tragically if the material goes unread, or worse - UNSHARED (gasp!), and at least three of my “friends” succumbed to my manipulation by sharing, and another six shared it accidentally because they are Of a Certain Age and don’t know what the Facebook buttons are for, I would increase my audience by at least 13%. That’s a lot when your audience is currently 6.5 people, and at some point, someone’s great Aunt Ruth is gonna share that piece of vital literature with her entire social network and her interweb savvy great-grand-niece would be some super cool literary agent or publishing house employee, or even the editor of a Small and Insignificant Magazine, but she would read me, and WANT me, and I would be FAMOUS. Two steps from a book deal, y’all.
I am dreaming here. I can see it now. In between worrying that Google Docs is going to suddenly realize that I have used up ALL of their internet space with my constant rambling and shut me down, and wondering if I bought a sophisticated pair of booties to wear with skinny jeans if people would take me more seriously, I am conjuring up a picture of where I am headed, and it’s frighteningly exciting.
Ever since I watched Romancing The Stone, I knew I was destined to be an eccentric writer with a messy bun and stacks of random literary starts scattered around my airy, high-rise big city apartment like so many tiny plants, just waiting for the exact right amount of sunlight and moisture to germinate into flourishing specimens of literary AWESOME. Except I would have more dogs than Kathleen Turner.
Of all of the GREAT IDEAS and CREATIVE VISIONS that come to me in my dreams (no, really, they do, but they’re kind of weird), I have yet to settle into the focus that is really the thing that will get me where I want to go. I, in predictable fashion, am all over the place like a ping pong ball in a zero gravity capsule, floating indiscriminately in and out of lost food particles and droplets of drool. I need a weighted vest to hold me down to my couch and brain blinders to keep my mind tracking down one path. THE PATH. I have proven that generating material is no issue at this point, cranking out thousands of useless words every day with no specific mission other than PAY THE BILLS. But it’s time to direct all of that wanton energy into something good. Good enough to get big. Big enough to open doors for All The Things (see video below).
But then I am gonna need things like trendy photographic head shots for my professional portfolio and business cards. I have business cards right now but I am mildly embarrassed to give them out, maybe because they don’t have a trendy head shot on them. Or maybe because I don’t like my phone number. Or maybe because handing out business cards makes me feel too much like a grown up. But only grown ups make the Big Bucks so I guess it’s time to embrace the business card suck.
Anyway, that’s a lot of rambling to basically express my displeasure at how much work it takes to become famous. Not that I am against work, but… If you know of any shortcuts (i.e. literary agents looking for the Next Big Thing, etc), I am all ears. (And feel free to share me with your great Aunt Ruth.)
