I just did a search for a favorite musical artist of mine, because I want to purchase one of her CDs. And one of the first hits that came up was an article about her… which I wrote, more than 10 years ago.
Neat, I thought! I’m now published worldwide, on the internet! Woo-hoo! The article was all attributed properly, except for one little thing…
My name was spelled wrong. It isn’t even my name any more; it was my name when I was married to my first husband, but still, it’s wrong. I sent off a friendly little e-mail to whomever runs the site, just for the sake of accuracy, and I even mentioned that I’m pleased that they’re posting my article, they’re more than welcome to it, and there are no copyright issues that they need to worry about (due to my generosity). Just spell my (former) name correctly, please.
So now I’m feeling petty and vain for caring about it at all, but I’m also feeling ten-feet-tall and overly proud that someone liked my article enough to bother posting it. Apparently, someone thought that I wrote the somewhat definitive interview article about this particular artist, and I can’t help but be flattered. And just a trifle annoyed that my name was misspelled.
My newest little brush with writerly fame, and they mess up my name. I just know that all of the top publishers in the nation are frantically searching for me, but they don’t have the correct spelling of my former name, so they can’t offer me the $5 million book deal.