Thoughts About Authors and Endings

So, yesterday I read an interesting and thought-provoking article about Elizabeth Gilbert on the Atlantic Monthly website, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Something about it has struck me as odd - odd enough that I wanted to share my thoughts.

Gilbert is the author of "Eat, Pray, Love," which I haven't read. As a wannabe-famous author myself, her success is certainly the golden parachute to shoot for - millions of copies sold, a movie starring Julia Roberts, and name recognition. Sounds like everything I want! She even has the enviable position of being an author that inspires her readers. Readers come away from her books feeling more fulfilled, more ready to take charge of their own lives, more aware of the beauty inherent in their lives. Again, I haven't read it but so many thousands wax poetic about this book.

So, imagine my surprise when this article states that she's 'walking away' from it all. She's saying goodbye to the very thing that has launched her career with meteoric success. She'd rather work in her garden. The article author opens the article by saying "Some successful artists know when to put it on a shelf."

Well, I frankly have to disagree. I guess I'm one of those other not-successful artists who will NEVER put any of my works on a shelf, so to speak! I'd give anything to inspire readers, to boast a million-copy bestseller, to share my work with packed rooms and eager listeners. No, Elizabeth Gilbert - I could never be like you. I could never want to say goodbye to "Daniel's Garden," "The Heart of a Lie," or any other of the dozens of novels in the works.

How could I? I care too much. It's a downfall, maybe, since it makes me so frustratingly uber-sensitive to criticism and putting myself out there. But it's also a blessing in disguise, for I just can't stop caring. And it is precisely my caring-so-much that would keep me from doing what Gilbert has done.

I love "Daniel's Garden" SO MUCH I would never want to stop talking about it, never want to stop exploring its motifs and characters, never stop chatting about how others have perceived it.

I think you take your success for granted, Ms. Gilbert. You have forgotten how joyous sharing your work can be. Instead of being a 'successful artist putting her work on a shelf,' to me you come across as someone who misunderstands her role as an author. Your mission is to share. Your mission is to inspire. Your mission is to touch others - and you're doing that!

I am an idealist, so this is perhaps too unrealistic for a successful author with dozens of speaking engagements and millions of fans who want to pick her brain at every turn. I'm also a textbook introvert, so puttering in the garden as opposed to facing a huge crowd of people does sound appealing.

But I also never want to stop sharing my work. It IS me, it IS what I have to offer this crazy nation so in need of more conversations about its history. It IS what I have to share with fellow readers who are interested in Daniel's or Esther's or any other main character's tale as much as I am.

So, Elizabeth Gilbert, an article like this about me would never be written. My books may have an ending, but my personal story of authorship never does. There is no "The End" in Meg's tale.

There are only more conversations!