Fame and the Writer

Folks Subbing to Agents: Get Your Skates On!

New Literary Agent: Laura Mamelok of Susanna Lea Associates

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Paul Whybrow

Full Member
Jun 20, 2015
Cornwall, UK
I was unexpectedly forced into thinking about the price of fame yesterday evening, as I rode my bicycle into my nearest town of Saint Columb Major, for my weekly food shop and to get some exercise. Speeding towards the supermarket, I almost ran into a celebrity as he stepped off the kerb to pose with some fans for a selfie.

Cornwall is a county that's popular with holiday-makers, and derives most of its income from them. Celebrities and the Royal family love it here too, favouring a coastal resort called Rock, near Padstow, where their presence has added £500,000 to the cost of many houses. Saint Columb Major really isn't that sort of chi-chi place, being inland and rather run down, so I was surprised to see Russell Brand grinning away to please a couple of giggling girls as they took their photo with him.

He's an actor, comedian, radio host, author and activist. I admire his chutzpah, but doubt his talent and sincerity. His recent activities as an activist smack of opportunism to me.

Russell-Brand.jpg


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Brand

Anyway, Russell was going about his business without too much bother, as people were respectful of his privacy. I bumped into the librarian, learning that he owned a house locally - his bolt hole. It made me think of how anonymity can be found in sleepy places and also in the city throng. I've been reading Lawrence Block's handbooks on writing recently, in which he said how much he liked being able to blend-in unrecognised as a famous writer, as he explored his beloved New York on the subway and walking neighbourhoods that he wasn't familiar with to research stories.

Another famous writer got attention yesterday, perhaps the most famous writer - one who even non-readers would recognise. It wasn't for anything that she'd done as such, but J.K. Rowling had her bushy Leylandii hedge trimmed. I will refrain from making puerile jokes about this, but it was deemed newsworthy enough to make the media :

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ry-traffic-lights-Leylandii-bush-trimmed.html

That Rowling needs to hide away behind tall hedges, walls and CCTV cameras to get some privacy doesn't surprise me, for she's adored and as a very wealthy woman is also a target for criminals and terrorists. I know one of her neighbours at her Kensington mansion, who gets more than a little nervous when he sees her bodyguard and hired goons checking her car for explosive devices. We all want to achieve recognition for our writing and some level of financial success, but there are drawbacks for the super-successful.

Various authors have been famously reclusive, including Thomas Pynchon, J.D. Salinger, Cormac McCarthy, Harper Lee and Hunter S Thompson. Sometimes this signalled a decline in output, though some were notably irascible and private people.

Have any of you ever seen a writer on the street, or in their natural habitat - a literary conference or bookshop? Were you star-struck or unimpressed ?
 
I met Giles Kristian at a book signing for 'God of Vengeance' about 2 years ago. He's a nice guy if a little shorter than I expected.
 
I've met more writers than I can keep track of. :) I've belonged to two Romance Writers of America chapters (one in Nashville and one here in Indianapolis), and we had multi-published authors in both. I was in the same chapters as Sherrilyn Kenyon, JT Ellison, Kim Law, Trish Milburn, Annie Solomon, Lynn Raye Harris, Beth Pattillo, CJ Redwine, Cheryl Brooks, and Sandy James, just to name a few. :)

At conferences I've attended I've met authors like Nora Roberts, Jeannie Lin, and countless other mega super stars, including a few very well-known romance editors and agents.

I'm real life good friends with Tymber Dalton, Jenika Snow, Honor James/April Zyon, Rebecca Joyce, and Sam Crescent, as in we've met in person and/or spoken on the phone multiple times. Honor lives here in Indy, Jenika lives close to where I grew up, and I've gone to Tampa, Florida to hang out with Tymber twice now. :)

I fangirled all over the place, of course, but all these women are warm and friendly. I've found romance writers to be very down to earth people, and more than happy to help other writers. Romance as a genre is so put down all the time that we tend to band together and take care of our own. :)
 
I met Giles Kristian at a book signing for 'God of Vengeance' about 2 years ago. He's a nice guy if a little shorter than I expected.
DJ Taylor came to do a talk at a literary conference I was at a year or two ago. When I met him in the foyer later, he too was much shorter than I had expected. The following year - AN Wilson: also short!
Is this a job requirement??!
 
Clever, but an utter twit, RB.

I was in Covent Garden once, happily mooching; a day out with a friend, turned round to come face to face with David Bellamy, a naturalist and writer, famous on TV at that time. He had a stall and was selling and signing copies of his latest charming children's book, The River. He was exactly as he seemed on the box.
 
I worked as a librarian for the borough of Westminster, London in the mid 1970s. One of the regular borrowers at the Great Portland Street branch was comedy actor Kenneth Williams, who had a flat nearby. American Colonists might know him from the Carry On series of films. He was as strange and fastidious in person as the characters he played.

Obsessed with cleanliness as he was, I was a bit surprised to see him in a public library where the books are borrowed by hundreds of people - though he did wear light cotton gloves, such as conservators use, even in summer. He also held his head up and back, a posture that offered a view straight up his rather gaping nostrils!

MAG209-kenneth-williams-fridge-magnet.jpg
 
I went to high school with Drew Carey. We worked together at McDonalds and he was part of my friend group. Not kidding. He's from Cleveland where I grew up, and graduated from high school the year before I did. :)

I read somewhere that the spectacles he wears are a stage prop, part of the image of the persona he inhabits while performing - is that correct?
 
I went to a writers conference in NYC a few years back and took the writing intensives class beforehand. It was taught by Steve Berry, who, at the time, I didn't know was a famous historical thriller author. Me being the quiet one, I sat in the back and didn't ask many questions, but I walked up to thank him and his wife for teaching. His wife asked if I enjoyed the class because I had been so quiet! Anyway, I had a good conversation with her and she offered to introduce me to LEE FREAKIN CHILD the next day.

Naturally, when I got there, I didn't approach her but she waved me over and FREAKING INTRODUCED ME TO HIM. I had an honest to God conversation with him, Steve and Elizabeth Berry and I almost lost my mind. For like twenty minutes, the four of us were chatting away, telling stories, asking questions, like we were all old buddies. It was amazing. And they were all super nice.

I was a TOTAL FANGIRL for like three months after. (Still am a little.)

That was actually when I decided to be serious about my writing. Since then, I've attended many book signings by Lee Child, Steve Berry, James Rollins, Joseph Finder, and others and worked up the courage to at least ask them questions when it was my turn to sign.
 
Maida Vale is a good spot for celebrity bumping.

Remember Julie from Neighbours? Jim Robinson's daughter. She was eating an apple as i crossed the road and gawked at her as a teenage swot.
Another day and I nearly fell over Mrs Bucket's (pronounced bouquet ;) ) on screen husband from Keeping up Appearances. Too lazy to google their real names :D
Shadow from gladiators drove down Gladstone Park Gardens in his shiny red sports car.
Lastly the hunky Dr Christian Jesson posed with my friend for a pic i took for her whilst at a health and beauty exhibition.

Oh and James Caan's sister used to be my local beautician for facials and eyebrow shaping. You can still visit her Revive clinic in Clayhall ;)
 
I went to a writers conference in NYC a few years back and took the writing intensives class beforehand. It was taught by Steve Berry, who, at the time, I didn't know was a famous historical thriller author. Me being the quiet one, I sat in the back and didn't ask many questions, but I walked up to thank him and his wife for teaching. His wife asked if I enjoyed the class because I had been so quiet! Anyway, I had a good conversation with her and she offered to introduce me to LEE FREAKIN CHILD the next day.

Naturally, when I got there, I didn't approach her but she waved me over and FREAKING INTRODUCED ME TO HIM. I had an honest to God conversation with him, Steve and Elizabeth Berry and I almost lost my mind. For like twenty minutes, the four of us were chatting away, telling stories, asking questions, like we were all old buddies. It was amazing. And they were all super nice.

I was a TOTAL FANGIRL for like three months after. (Still am a little.)

That was actually when I decided to be serious about my writing. Since then, I've attended many book signings by Lee Child, Steve Berry, James Rollins, Joseph Finder, and others and worked up the courage to at least ask them questions when it was my turn to sign.

Lee Child admitted that he's permanently high while writing, which surprised me a bit, as most heavy dope smokers I've known would have found it hard to write even a shopping list - unless it was one full of junk food to satisfy their munchies.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-nights-week-44-years-dealers-speed-dial.html
 
Fame and writing are not particularly good bedfellows. I asked the secretary to the Nobel prize committee about this three years ago... the paradoxical effect being that giving an author the Nobel prize for literature can sometimes be the kiss of death for their creative muse.

He told me they were sufficiently worried by this phenomenon to have commissioned research into it. You can hear the show here.
 
Fame and writing are not particularly good bedfellows. I asked the secretary to the Nobel prize committee about this three years ago... the paradoxical effect being that giving an author the Nobel prize for literature can sometimes be the kiss of death for their creative muse.

He told me they were sufficiently worried by this phenomenon to have commissioned research into it. You can hear the show here.

The same thing is said of Oscar winners. It can become a curse for actors' careers - just look at what's happened to Jamie Foxx, Adrien Brody, Forest Whitaker, Halle Berry, Mira Sorvino and Cuba Gooding Jr who have failed to reach anything like the same level of success.
 
Fame and writing are not particularly good bedfellows. I asked the secretary to the Nobel prize committee about this three years ago... the paradoxical effect being that giving an author the Nobel prize for literature can sometimes be the kiss of death for their creative muse.

He told me they were sufficiently worried by this phenomenon to have commissioned research into it. You can hear the show here.

And Poet Laureates.
 
As The Bug Lady, I could never go anywhere incognito--my car was instantly recognisable by the huge insects splashed across it, and people smiled and waved wherever I went. Kids would also recognise me in the grocery store and stop me to ask if I remembered them from such-and-such a school (of course, I always did! ;) ). I was a bit relieved to be able to take off the signwriting from the car and sink back into obscurity. I no longer have to worry about exactly what I'm carrying in the car, or what shops I frequent, because I'm not so obvious anymore. It's difficult to be on display wherever you go.
 
Ok it's official, I never want the Nobel Prize! :D

You know that old cliche 'quit while you're ahead' works well here. But on a serious note this only has an affect if you let your ego take over.

Egos are very powerful creatures that need taming and taken out once in a while. But if you let it over power you then so much is lost. We lose sight of ourselves to improve because we're too stubborn to change...in the case of the nobel prize/or any other laurette we think we've 'made it'...when you think that you settle.

So don't ever settle. Always be better than you were this morning :D...a cuppa normally does the trick ;)
 
I agree, @Emurelda! If you think you're as good as you'll get, you've lost.

So many people settle for what they are now and don't realise we can learn so much from each other to propel us to be better.

I've seen business men fail because they are still under the illusion that they are as great as the national papers said they were when the reached their 'peak' and then no more work was accomplished. Downhill - although they can't see it unfortunately.

Until we recognise we need help then no matter what anyone says we will just be hostile and snobby at the thought that anyone could dare teach us anything new or better than what we know now. Don't ever settle.
 
Am I the only one that finds this insanely funny? Probably haha!

The 41 is a main route bus too. Nobody but nobody cares about hiking up to Morningside to look at her house. Fact. In fact if you'd like me to prove it I will take a drive by snap of the lack of fans on my way past tomorrow :p (see what I did there)

Several people have hedges that big in Morningside. Not just her, and no one else needed to close a road to advertise the fact that they were pruning their sense of self importance... do they ? ;)

In all seriousness though, I think these things are just done to get their names in the paper when they have been out of the lime light for a bout a month or two.
 
Am I the only one that finds this insanely funny? Probably haha!

The 41 is a main route bus too. Nobody but nobody cares about hiking up to Morningside to look at her house. Fact. In fact if you'd like me to prove it I will take a drive by snap of the lack of fans on my way past tomorrow :p (see what I did there)

Several people have hedges that big in Morningside. Not just her, and no one else needed to close a road to advertise the fact that they were pruning their sense of self importance... do they ? ;)

In all seriousness though, I think these things are just done to get their names in the paper when they have been out of the lime light for a bout a month or two.

Well, and you know it almost certainly wasn't her who advertised it, it was almost certainly the pack of publicists that must hang around her, feeding off the leftovers. They're the ones who want her in the limelight all the time, because it's their paychecks that depend upon it.
 
Well, and you know it almost certainly wasn't her who advertised it, it was almost certainly the pack of publicists that must hang around her, feeding off the leftovers. They're the ones who want her in the limelight all the time, because it's their paychecks that depend upon it.
It's the same for all the "famous" people
 
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Folks Subbing to Agents: Get Your Skates On!

New Literary Agent: Laura Mamelok of Susanna Lea Associates

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