The Traveling Writer: Admiring the "Success" of a Much-Admired Author

JRR Tolkien -- It Depends on How You Define Success

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft, the Traveling Writer

Today I bring you with me to a mini-adventure in New York City, in the palace-like home and library of financier JP Morgan, now known as the Morgan Library.

I visited the JRR Tolkien art exhibit there. It was mobbed. Stood on line for an hour. Feet hurt for two days.

How many writers can attract people from all over the world to see their doodles in the margins of their notes? To see the book covers that they designed, the maps they made in order to keep the landscape they imagined consistent throughout their writings, the timelines they meticulously charted in order to keep complicated story lines straight for the reader? And for themselves? I've done all those things and nobody troops to my Brooklyn studio apartment to see : )

A book cover that Tolkien designed.

Tolkien worked full time as a college professor of Middle English and had a family of four children that he told bedtime stories to. The Lord of the Rings started as bedtime stories for them, and they reportedly resented their father publishing what they considered to be THEIR stories.

He had a lot of demands on his time. Students clamored for his time and attention too.

In other words, he was as busy as I am -- but he had a wife, and I don't have anybody to help me. But he still found time to devote to imagining the world of the Hobbits in great detail. He made up a language, Elvish, with its own vocabulary and grammar. He kept notes on all this, and his notes are pleasing to the eye.

I wish I could have taken more photographs to share with you, but they were prohibited inside the Tolkien exhibit. I did fire off one shot that reminded me of my grandson before the museum guard told me that photographs were prohibited.

I think Tolkien loved babies, as I do.

So people trooped from far and wide to see Tolkien's drawings, doodles, maps, and diagrams. People are still reading and enjoying his works, which have been made into blockbuster movies. He was a successful author, no? He certainly has all the signs of authorial success.

JP Morgan had the money and power to build a lavish temple as his home. In financial circles, he was a tremendous success.

Both men's names are immortal.

My name, as an author, has scant chance of being immortal. One reason: My books compete with the 3 million new books published yearly on Amazon. I'd like to think they're as full of life as Tolkien's books--I certainly worked to make it so--but readers will decide that question.

Long ago, I decided that for me, success as an author was twofold: critical acclaim and banner sales.

I do feel they're a success in one way: I've received great reviews. I got the critical acclaim, in my opinion. Still waiting for the sales so I can write full-time...I've set the bar for "success" so high, I'll probably never achieve it.

Besides, most writers always feel like a failure anyway -- we try for certain effects, we labor to engage our audiences, we ache to pick the right words, we work to take advantage of every opportunity that our story opens up to us. And we know we've failed. Samuel Becket, the Irish playwright, said of writing, "Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

I'm editing another novel now and will publish it soon, a prequel to Why Spy. I'm also doing the research for a new novel set in Brooklyn. The title is so good, I can't go public with it. But I'm interviewing theater people and Copts in order to prepare for the writing, which will be all morning every morning in Paris! Starting July 21!! For three weeks!! Can't wait to fail better.

I was able to take pics in the JP Morgan Library and exhibit room, so here goes: