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10. People who I know quite well will come to my signings, but I won't recognize them and will be horribly embarassed. (This is unfortunately not only plausible, but inevitable; I forget both names and faces, and typically don't recognize people when they're out of the context I know them from. I've thought of asking them to spell their name, but what if it's Bob?)
9. I will get a stalker.
8. I will get on Oprah, but someone will spike my drink with an untraceable substance that makes me blurt out obscenities and racial slurs, then strip.
7. Baba-lovers will sue me.
6. Fifty years from now, this book will still be the thing I'm famous for, and no one will ever like anything else I write ever again.
5. The book will be a big flop, the advance won't earn out, and I will never sell another book again.
4. I will never write anything good again.
3. Baba-lovers will try to assassinate me. (I've already had three people ask me quite seriously if it's possible that this could happen. I said no, Baba-lovers go more for passive-aggressive social snobbery and backbiting campaigns than fatwas, but how many authors even get asked this question in the first place?)
2. Crazy people will read it, decide that I am their new guru, and form an entire cult of stalkers focused on me.
1. The book will be successful, but I will drop dead.
9. I will get a stalker.
8. I will get on Oprah, but someone will spike my drink with an untraceable substance that makes me blurt out obscenities and racial slurs, then strip.
7. Baba-lovers will sue me.
6. Fifty years from now, this book will still be the thing I'm famous for, and no one will ever like anything else I write ever again.
5. The book will be a big flop, the advance won't earn out, and I will never sell another book again.
4. I will never write anything good again.
3. Baba-lovers will try to assassinate me. (I've already had three people ask me quite seriously if it's possible that this could happen. I said no, Baba-lovers go more for passive-aggressive social snobbery and backbiting campaigns than fatwas, but how many authors even get asked this question in the first place?)
2. Crazy people will read it, decide that I am their new guru, and form an entire cult of stalkers focused on me.
1. The book will be successful, but I will drop dead.
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11. Next month, someone will release a memoir of their experiences growing up in a bizarre cult-like commune in Taos. It will be so eerily similar to your book, despite the cultural differences, that everyone will assume one or the other of you is a plagiarist. Before you know it, you'll find yourself on Oprah, sitting across from the other author (who got the nicer couch) and being asked to explain the unprecedented counter-countersuit your agent filed against their publicist.
(At least your readers try to be helpful...)
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I would say that the fear of stripping on Oprah, coupled with forgetting everyones names and being generally thought of as absurd or a failure, is what cripples my writing. Sometimes I get so overwrought with parylizing fear that I can't finish a grocery list. So, you know... join the club.
Hey, I went to see how many people found my dumb Amazon review helpful (4 out of 6), and noticed you have another review... you inspiring warrior child, you!
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Spelling sucks.
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Spelling sucks, and so does LJ's spellchecker.
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I'm here by way of
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Actually,
By the way, the original post here is very funny. I've been hearing "My Biggest Fear As An Author" anecdotes from my increasing circle of writer friends/blog pals.
I have only two:
1) The thing will get published, and absolutely no one will notice or care except my friends, who will all buy copies to a) find out what I said about them and b) bolster my practically non-existent Amazon.com sales.
and
2) The thing will get published, and no one will notice or care except my friends and the people in your Number 2 Fear, or rather, people like those in your number two fear who, for unknown reasons, passed you by as Guru Du Jour, and have latched on to me instead, thus earning me meager Amazon.com sales AND a minuscule but threatening army of stalkers.
=)
And now, lunch time!
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My memoir is not fictionalized at all, by the way, though people keep thinking it is because I changed people's names and some of their physical descriptions for legal reasons. But all the events really happened to the best of my recollection.
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The legalities and such were what concerned me. I'm working on a memoir-ish story (though I think the words 'searing prose' will never be used to describe it...or anything I write, for that matter) which is largely, though not entirely, based on events that actually happened. It will be fictionalized somewhat, depending on where the story goes. However, most, if not all, of the people in it will be real folk, or based on real folk.
Now, I've changed the names of some of the major people in it, some slightly, some totally, but the people are still completely recognizeable. In fact, my friends all do joke that they're going to buy the thing just to see what I've said about them (and most of them are betting that half of my hometown won't be speaking to me by chapter four). Also, they've pretty much given me carte blanche to do with them as I please; they're getting a boot out of being there at all.
I'm more concerned with people with whom I'm far less acquainted, whom I will disguise more thoroughly, but who might recognize themselves in the telling. I don't intend to use anyone in any sort of libelous situation (this things going to be a bit of amusing fluff, I think), but I am concerned every time I read the "The characters in this book are imaginary and in no way..." blurb at the beginning of damn near every piece of fiction I read. You see, all of the events I'm writing about actually happened, unbelieveable as they may seem, and usually the person with whom or to whom the situations happened caused those situations to happen. Without them, there isn't a story.
What does one do when one knows damn well that the characters in this book aren't remotely imaginary (I don't have that vivid an imagination, believe me)? Have a lawyer read it? Put a different blurb up front?
How did you go about it?
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But you forgot: no one will come to my signings.
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I also make it very clear that I get so nervous during a signing that if my name wasn't on the book, I'd forget that , too, and I only recognize that it's my name because my photo is on the cover flap... So I apologize in advance and ask everyone to tell me their name and most importantly HOW TO SPELL IT.
Because there are "Michaels" and "Mikels" and "Miguels" and "Miquels" and etc.
Having them write it for you makes them feel involved and special,and that you're going to treasure them in your signing guestbook.
But even if I just have a sheet of blank paper, I usually need to write down the names myself just before I sign something, to get the spellings right and so on.
Of course, most of my signings are in Europe where the spellings are analgous but different than US ones for names that sound the same.
in re: 2. Don't you live in L.A.? So won't there then be gang-wars between your cult and the Baba-lovers? :-)
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This is a really cool idea. I'm going to try it, sometime!
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---L.
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I'm not helping, am I?
And my copy hasn't shipped yet. It's waiting on the pre-order that's in the same order, I think.
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(Your book got here yesterday. Hoorah!)
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found the cultdrag a small horde of undergraduate English majors to a signing, if you appeared on the apparently unloved Other Coast.(The Writers' House (http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~wh/) would be quite convenient for us. *g*)
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