6 versus 153,000

Who the hell wants to be famous? Rich is one thing... I'd take the money, travel the globe, and run charitable foundations behind the scenes. But famous? Give up my private life and have every flaw analyzed by masses of ill-qualified sycophants and haters? Ummmm... no thanks. I'll let Britney Spears have her breakdown in public. She seems to enjoy it.

But the real problem with fame is it doesn't care what you want. Sometimes it comes calling whether you like it or not. I don't think this guy *liked* being stuck in an elevator for 41 hours, but I saw him on GMA the other day. And no doubt Jake Brown would rather not have fallen 40 feet off his skateboard. But he's an X-games legend because of it. Neither wanted to make history, but their follies brought them fame anyway, sort of like Elaine's dancing on Seinfeld.

So my exhaustive 137 posts (with over 153,000 words) about the New England Patriots didn't get me noticed at all. I love football, it's like full-speed, full-contact chess. And I love keeping tabs on the Patriots and the discussions the posts have sparked with my friends. But after all those game summaries, season previews, and playoff predictions, I reached my *zenith* of semi-fame for 6 words that have nothing to do with football.

"Changing mind postponed demise by decades." That was my submission to a Smith Magazine contest for a six-word memoir. It took me about 20 minutes to come up with it, and after I submitted it in December of 2006, I didn't think about it again.

Until February '07. That's when Rachel Fershleiser (one of the Smith Magazine Editors) approached me and 400 others about a book deal they'd gotten from Harper Perennial. They wanted permission to use my memoir, and they wanted me to create a visual image to accompany it in the book. I wrestled with the image for about a month and finally sent in my best effort. The book wasn't due out for a year, and there was no guarantee I'd be in it, so I sort of lost track of it.

Until December of that year, when I emailed Rachel and found out that I was indeed in the book. I thought that was pretty cool, and then I got more news. My memoir was one of only 40 or so that would include the user-created image *and* be on its own page. I can't really draw, so I was shocked that my scribbling was good enough. Maybe they didn't get enough other submissions or the ones they got sucked. But whatever the reason, I'd been singled out -- and was a tinsy-weensy bit more famous than before.

So in a year, I'd gone from 1 of 5,000 anonymous contest entries to 1 of 40 authors with his own page in a book. That's quite a climb up the fame ladder, and mind you, I didn't care one way or the other. Just doing my thing, and someone happened to notice. And guess what, it didn't quite end there.

As part of their campaign to publicize the book, Smith Magazine decided to profile several of the contributors. They asked for background on my memoir, hoping my story would be interesting enough to be part of their web-site blitz at book launch. Not only did they like it, they inserted an introductory paragraph and published the entire bloody email (complete with asides to the person I was emailing).

Now I *really* felt like a published author. Six words and a drawing in the book were okay, but 1,000 words for an online magazine with subscribers and advertisers seemed like a much bigger deal.

The publication of the book led to a bunch of other fun things. I'll chronicle those over the next few weeks. But there is one thing I learned from all this.

I've heard the whole "do what you love" theory, and I call it complete BS. You have to earn a living, and almost no one can earn one doing what we *really* want, sitting on a beach drinking mint juleps and making love with whomever we want. However, I think it's important to do your absolute best at whatever you decide to try. Because you never know which thing you do might lead to something fun or interesting.

I don't think I'd have gotten in the book if I didn't have a memoir that resonated and intriuged. And I wouldn't have gotten my own page if I blew off drawing an image (which was the toughest part of the whole project). And no way would Smith Magazine have published my email if I threw it together in 10 minutes.

So forget about "do what you love" -- it's a fairy tale told by those who already succeeded. But always do your best at whatever you care about. Your level of effort is one of the few things you can control, so don't blow *that*.

- Semi-famous Scott