"I want to be left alone," Garbo said

I recently heard an interview on NPR with an author who wrote a novel about a famous reclusive writer.

I found myself wondering if it's even possible to be a famous reclusive writer anymore? With book tours and required promotions like blogs and social media and all the things that are pushed on authors--heck, even NPR interviews--how can it be? A famous writer OR a reclusive writer, sure. But both? I can't see it happening. I can't see people leaving you alone to be so--people who like your work and want to tell you, much less your own agent or publisher.

Imagine Salinger on Twitter. Or Harper Lee embarking on a multi-city signing, having to smile at all the Boo Radley cosplayers in front of her table. Agents considering Proust's work purring derisively, "But Mr. Proust, what's your platform?" Could Emily Dickinson have written what she did if she were constantly being prodded to self-promote her poetry?  (Though, to be fair, poetry is probably in a different category and she wasn't popular in her lifetime).

Is it still possible? I don't know.

I kind of hope so, though. It's the kind of writer I'd like to be. Like Anne McCaffery on her Irish hidey-hole estate...only in my case, somewhere on the coast of New England, perhaps. (Not that I'd turn my nose up at Ireland or Scotland, but if I'm going to make the kind of money famous reclusive writers make in order to maintain their reclusivity, I'm getting ocean-front).

Besides, so much of my work depends on being able to interact with trees and listening to wind and water or staring into the face of the blue, blue sky or sussing out the tiny wildflowers that hide under bracken in the woods.  It involves knowing the insides of people's minds, not the brief, brisk, interactions that blur together.

I do want to write work that lasts, work that speaks to people and creates new, wandering pathways through their synapses. I want to craft things that bring tears to my readers' eyes or elicit unexpected belly laughs. And, yes, it would be wonderful to be able to do all of that and get paid for it well enough that I wouldn't HAVE to do anything else--but I'm not sure being famous is worth it.

Then again, I'm not sure being a recluse is, either.