The author ponders what it is about Fame that causes us to desire it.

"Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud."
-- W.H. Auden. "Writing", pt. 1, The Dyer’s Hand (1962)

Can anybody tell me why it is that humans lust after something so fickle as fame? Is it our desire to be immortalized that spurns us on so for fame? Is it something a little more honorable, say our desire just to be remembered, that encourages us?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Someone asked me why I wrote my novel, LILITH'S LOVE. I replied honestly that is not out of a desire to be famous or rich. I desire not to carry the baggage of the famous, the infamous, or the wealthy. I simply had an idea for a story and I wrote it down.

But is it wrong for me to want people to read it? This is where I dance around the question of fame. For while I might like to hear that my book is popular, and it might be a dream come true should it be a bestseller or movie of the week. This is only the case because it will mean I have written something that touches peoples lives. Gives them entertainment. Inspires or teaches them something they never knew.

But why should I care? Was it not enough that I had the idea in the first place? That the muse chose me worthy to visit and inspire me? Why should I be the only benefactor of such a tale. Was I alone meant to learn something from this? Was it a vision of something prophetic? I know many things I wrote about have come to pass, and a few readers have felt amazing connections by reading it.

Even Daniel of the Old Testament was told that his special visions were not to be shared. That they should remianed sealed until the end of days. But someone obviously published them, else we would not know of how he survived the Lions' Den and was considered so pure as to be shown the revelations he wrote down. They were a special gift to the Hebrews, who consider that they have all come to pass.

My muse never told me these should be set aside and locked away. She never promised me fame and fortune either. Again, I don't seek it either. But I do get a great deal of pleasure when I get my paltry royalty check after a copy of my book sells.

So if profit is not my driving force, why publish it as a book for sale then? Why not just place it online for the public to read for free? Tried it actually, I believe more people have actually bought a copy of the paperback than ever visited the website.

I even wrote a CGI program for displaying my book online in a more user-friendly format than just a long or multi-page document. You could search within the document, and even save your bookmarks. I even had a cool name for it. iBook. Now Apple has trademarked it for the name of their laptop computers. iMagine that.

Payment also offers a tracking mechanism. I know how many people have bought a copy of my book. Would more sell if the book was less-expensive? Perhaps. Ebooks still have a long way to go before they are considered a preferable medium. Eye-strain and other issues of comfort and familiarity plague books on the web or on portable devices.

Yet here we sit, reading and writing in online journals. Anyone who writes online could be considered published and their rambling copyrighted. But does this make one an author. No. At least not in the eyes of the public. It is in their eyes that fame is defined and defiled.

Do I want to be famous? No, I just want to be read. To know, or at least pretend to feel justified, that these words that dance in my head and spill out onto paper or photons will not have been thought of in vain.

"Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live registered upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
When spite of cormorant devouring Time,
Th’ endeavor of this present breath may buy
That honor which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity."
--William Shakespeare. The King, in "Love’s Labor’s Lost", act 1, sc. 1, l. 1-7.