By Andrew E. Kaufman
A long time ago (very long) in a land far away (well, not so
far, really) there was a little boy named Andrew (that’s me), who always felt he had so
much to tell the world. The problem was, as often happens with toddlers, not
much of what he said made a whole lot of sense, and as also often happens with
toddlers, when the audience grew thin, it only intensified his determination to
spread The Gospel According to Andrew. In other words, Andrew was a chatty
little boy. In other words, you couldn’t shut him up, even if you wanted to.
I guess you could say I developed a bit of a complex over
this.
Then one day, my grandmother sealed the deal when she bought
me my first book. It was called Nobody
Listens to Andrew, and besides the fact I was sure it was written
exclusively about me, and besides the fact that it trumpeted my tragic story, I also discovered
something else very important: the true value of the written word.
After that, I was unstoppable.
I became obsessed with that book to where I’d make my
grandmother read it to me every night. I’m pretty sure I had it memorized word-for-word—I’m also pretty sure she did, too, even though she probably wished she
hadn't
Eventually, I moved on to other great literary works. I think
Curious George came next, and after
that, I developed a penchant for the Dark Side with Where the Wild Things Are. Needless to say, a thriller writer was
born.
By then, I was pretty confident I knew what my path in life
would be. I would someday write The Great American Novel—you know, much in the
tradition of Nobody Listens to Andrew
and the like.
The point of all this (I know you were probably wondering if
there was one) is that, as writers, we all come from the same place. We have
stories to tell and an intense desire to share them with the world, and while
we’d love to make a living at it, most of us would still tell our stories
anyway, because really, it’s not about numbers—it’s about The Journey, the unmitigated joy
we feel each time we open a blank page and watch our imaginary worlds come to
life. That’s where the magic begins.
I think on an intellectual level we know that, but on an
emotional one, we often forget it. We become obsessed with sales rankings,
reviews, how many Facebook likes we have, and lots of other silly things that
in fact have nothing to do with why we became writers in the first place.
The moral of Andrew's story, and maybe yours too, is that whether you sell a lot of books or you don’t, success is only fleeting if you define it within those parameters.
But if you don't, there’s one thing that nobody can ever take away, and that one thing is
your love for the written word.
And because of that, no matter what, you will always be successful.
Listen to Andrew. The dude knows.
