A daily prompt.

A literary-minded witch gives you a choice: with a flick of the wand, you can become either an obscure novelist whose work will be admired and studied by a select few for decades, or a popular paperback author whose books give pleasure to millions. Which do you choose?

Interesting question. Is it always either/or?  I think the question here is ‘fame or credibility’. We seem to be in a culture where fame has a shelf life of fifteen minutes, so it’s heavily discounted. Would I want to be Morrissey or an XFactor winner? Well poor old Mozza is perpetually grumpy, so I’ll take the 15 mins thanks.   (Don’t worry, I’ll keep my day job selling newspapers.) I’ve already written a song called ‘One Hit Wonder’ for my comeback album… if I ever have a hit.

In the literary world I’ll take either, please!  At some point I’ll be trying to flog my stories….  will write for beer!

Forget that, though, I won’t call myself a writer until I’ve finished something. Meanwhile, it certainly isn’t all either/or in music or books. The Beatles were b igger than the Bay City Rollers and cooler than Lou Reed. Their work is still being copied today.

In the literary world, how about an author who published his stuff in monthly installments, cliff hangers and tear jerkers  every time?  Very popular once upon a time.  I wonder what happened to Charles Dickens?

Great Expectations