I was never that much a focus of interest that I became a 'thing' at an earlier point in my career. I'm aware of having become a 'thing' now, which doesn't give me a lot of pleasure.
I'm not scared of growing old, I'm just scared of not achieving everything that I want to do.
A large wildlife book, start to finish, could take one to two years, but then I would expect to get several good (nature) magazine features off the back of this, plus of course a lot of stock.