What is Success?

My Take

 DiVoran Lites

Here’s the deal. If all goes as expected, my first novel will soon be published on several e-book sites. I can hardly believe it myself after all this time, but just the idea of it sets me to wondering whether people will like Sacred Spring or not. I sure enjoyed writing it.

People sure liked, To Kill a Mocking Bird. It won just about every award for writing there was and sold at least 30 million books. But with the greatest success possible, it was the beginning and the end of Harper Lee’s writing career.

I don’t want to be famous. I don’t want to get rich. I just want to keep on writing. I’ve got a bouquet of novels, some written and needing polishing, some still in my head. I am the consummate later bloomer and I’m beginning to think that is the best thing I could possibly be.

Other writers try to figure out why Harper Lee never wrote any more novels. They give reasons such as:

1. The publicity was so invasive she couldn’t bear to go through it all again.

2. Money wasn’t a big deal to her, either.

She had a sister and some good friends, and she loved to fish, but she loved to write best of all. She had a childhood friend, who was also a writer, who betrayed her and turned his back on her. He was jealous. How much effect does venom have on the life of a writer? I know from personal experience that some kinds of criticism can constipate a writer’s mind.

Many writers have overcome all those problems and gone on to write seventy or a hundred good books. But I feel that I could identify with Harper Lee, in the area of blocking myself and never going any further.

So, what is success to me?

Pulitzer. No thank you. I’m not in that league. Money, God is already supplying all my needs. So what does my writing dream come to?

I want to sit down at my computer and be myself. I want to commune with story people. I want to be interested in everything and everybody. Life is my lab. I want to arrange and rearrange sentences, describe things, play with words. I want family and friends who love me for myself and who are easy to be with. That’s all. Maybe I’m a success already, because that’s exactly the way I’m living right now and I love it.

The world is full of books, it is also full of food, the demand for both is endless. That’s success as far as I’m concerned.

Tags: #amwriting, Success, To Kill a Mockingbird