more Back in September when i had to start my mad hunt for an agent, somehow or other, I ended up at Nathan Bransford’s blog. He’s a literary agent based out of San Francisco and while I didn’t query him, I found a great deal of useful information at his blog and I ended up hanging around once I hooked up with my new agent.
The other day, he had an interesting question:
“You go down to the crossroads and make a pact to have your novel and future novels published. You are given a conditional choice. Either you can receive the highest literary acclaim for your work, but a guarantee that you will never earn enough to give up your day job. Or you can always be considered a terrible hack, but make bucketloads of cash.
Which do you choose?”
It’s an interesting question, and it led to some interesting answers, but mine was easy.
So how terribly shallow was it of me to answer in two seconds flat…that I’d take the cash?
It’s a no-brainer for me. While yeah, it’scool to think about my name living on for centuries after my death, kinda like Shakespeare, I’ve got a more important legacy depending on me in this century. Namely, my family.
I write for a living. I quit the day, started writing full time. This is how I pay my bills. I wouldn’t have no where near as much time to write if I was still working a full-time job.
It’s really hard to feed the family on critical acclaim. Besides, I’m about as interested in wow’ing every critic out there as I am in learning how to wrestle professionally. Which is…zero interest. I write to please myself, I write to entertain, and luckily for me, I’m writing in a genre that does pretty well.
Others can have all the acclaim they want. I’ve got people buying my books, which means I’m doing something right. Right?
If you’re a writer, which would you choose? Fame? Fortune?