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Death
We All Face a Final Deadline. We Just Don’t Know When It Is.
Don’t assume you have plenty of time
I believe every serious writer wants the same thing: To leave behind one very good piece of writing.
Novelist Stephen Markley said it in notes at the end of — a book that without question is a very good piece of writing.
I want to leave behind a book that will make a deep impression on people who have never met me. I like to imagine someone picking up a copy several decades after I’m gone, loving it, and noting with regret that I’m dead and unable to receive fan mail.
I want to live on in my work
What a megalomaniac.
We all want to be remembered, right?
In 2013, I interviewed a man named . You might remember the controversial treasure hunt he organized. He buried an ancient chest full of treasures, hid it, and then published clues.
Fenn in 2020, but he took steps to be remembered far in the future. He buried multiple copies of his autobiography in hand-cast bronze jars, and he buried bronze bells on which an inscription asked whoever found them, even if a thousand years from now, to ring the bell so he would know.
