Something happened to Google Blogs Friday, and the Thursday posts from several bloggers (including mine) disappeared. But I think my Thursday post was worth salvaging, so I am going to repost it. It's not word for word, but it was about what might be considered the ultimate achievement for an author. I made the point last Wednesday that getting your book made into a movie would be a great event. And for many authors that is true. But I don't believe it's an ultimate achievement.
So what might be considered an ultimate achievement for an author? Some people might say that being considered the greatest writer of your time is the ultimate achievement, or perhaps writing a book that is considered a truly great book which catapults an author into the ranks of great writers is the ultimate achievement. And who could argue that if you were considered an equal to the likes of Melville, Dickens, Hemingway, Wilde, Dostoyevsky, and Tolsoy, that it wouldn't be an ultimate achievement?
Sure writing books like War and Peace and Moby Dick might be just the achievement needed to qualify, but is there anything else? How about creating a new ideology? Ayn Rand did that. How about creating a new genre? Robert E. Howard did that.
How about changing the world for the better? How about writing a book that made people change their negative behavior? A book that made society change for the better? Is it possible for a book to bring peace to the world? You would think that religious books, like the Bible or the Qur'an would bring peace to the world. Nope. Is it possible? I wonder.
It would be nice if it was possible. Don't you think?
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