I have limited funds so I can’t buy everything. That is probably a protection for me. Having too much money or nearly unlimited funds might temp me to get involved in deals and possessions that cause me trouble. So, I hesitate to try to be too wealthy, even though I am not totally certain what “too wealthy” is.
I just finished a book by a very famous modern author. I don’t know how much he has earned by his sales but I bet if I earned that much, I would be wealthier. However, the book was terrible. He tries to be exciting or dramatic in the extreme. He tries to get my blood pounding. Then, in the next of too many chapters, he tries to get my blood pounding even harder. Pretty soon, these efforts simply turn me off. They become ridiculous, not exciting.
So I am faced with a paper choice: would I rather be a famous author of drivel or the unknown person I am? I often wonder if I will sometime be embarrassed by something I have written. If I write enough, it seems likely. Luckily, I am not trying to make lots of sales. I am not trying to be all that exciting. I would like to be interesting. I find 1-3 people commenting on many of these posts. I take that amount of comment to be a good sign. I certainly don’t want hundreds of comments. I don’t want the excitement level of the comments to be too great.
I am confident this sort of expression is not going to get me an offer from a movie maker to buy the rights to my story. I don’t have a story, just observations. I do want to find that readers enjoy reading my observations. I would love it if some comments opened some mental doors for some readers, just as I used to try to reach some of my students some of the time. I think that some of my observations do indeed strike a chord with some readers. That is my goal and I am satisfied.
I don’t want to produce pornography or bloody scenes that produce nightmares. Even if doing so would give me millions of dollars. The writers I admire, for instance, Dale Launer and Alexander McCall Smith, write gentle but insightful work that gives me a tickle or a smile.
