Is That Me?

I am a sometime American Idol watcher. I watched the Clay Aiken series, and most of the Fantasia one - I really liked Fantasia - and I've pretty much skipped it ever since. Out of curiosity, I started watching again this season.

Is the show disturbing because so many people who have no excuse are willing to be crushed on national television? Or because it's so blatantly manipulated by the producers and editors? No. It's disturbing because for an aspiring writer, it hits way too close to home.




It's hard to laugh at those wannabes when you bear way too much resemblance to them. After all, the ones who suck have no idea they suck. There must be a lot of equivalent writers out there. It's a writer's nightmare: What if I suck and I don't know it? What if everyone knows it but me?

Then you have your obvious parallels: Judges = editors and agents, auditions = query letters, gold ticket = request for a full manuscript, recording contract = publishing contract (but with way, way more money.) And in the end, what do you get? After the hoopla dies down, you get a middling career doing pretty good work - if you're lucky. (Well, you also get lots of money. And hopefully laid.) Even that Guarini guy doesn't have to go out and get a job at Walmart, so it's nothing to sneeze at, but I also don't think it's everything it's cracked up to be.

I just got another request for a full manuscript from an agent, so this kind of thing has been on my mind. So, my gold ticket tells me I don't completely suck, but it's also a long, long way from anything meaningful. The one thing Idol has taught me, perversely, is that fame isn't everything. The best ones are driven, but they're not desperate - their identity doesn't rest on how famous they are, but how good they are.

So, Randy, Simon, and Paula - thanks for the lesson.