My First Blog Entry

Welcome to my first blog entry!

Pardon me while the title of this blog plays with a notion of Authorship as it used to relate to women writers. Before the 20th Century, women were not to become writers, so really motivated, privileged women chose to create a masculine pen name, and thus my obvious cliched choice of "Smith."

This echoes another question of "Can a writer truly depict his/her inner soul, or will it to some degree always be veiled behind not only a nome de plume, but a different personality?" Generally, I tend to feel free enough to disclose a good chunk of my personality in my writing, and yet... (insert ominous music here)... there is that which I feel it is my right to keep to myself, so full disclosure is not promised nor expected here.

I do promise to be the person who puts the words together on this page, but full authorship I cannot claim, as I am allowing the designer from Blogspot to fashion the look and layout of the page. Furthermore, isn't it the audience who takes what they wish from any given work?

Regarding favorite authors: there are a paltry couple in the written sense (Fiction: Bradbury, Motivational: Covey). The "authors" that have most inspired me though have been musical-- Pete Townshend, John Lennon, Ray Davies. Interesting to consider about these inspirational lyric writers is that they didn't go to university to learn how to express themselves, yet they spoke directly into the way I was processing the world.

"Are they true authors?" comes the question oft-asked in last night's discussion. According to my own definition of author, the answer is an enthusiastic "Of course!" My view is that anyone who can create something from nothing is an author of sorts-- whether he/she was paid to do it, whether or not she/he needed the money, or if anyone academic recognizes their effort.

Again, the next question of "But what if they suck?" bounces around the inside of my head. Quality, as beauty, is in the eye of the beholder and for me to tell someone else to dismiss an author simply because I think "they suck" is implying I'm in a position of authority to tell others what to think. I am not. To me, those that "suck," are still creative people, and often they can still make a lot of money (although not from me).

The "outsider artist," Henry Darger spent decades creating a massive (over 15,000 pages!) illuminated manuscript entitled "In the Realms of the Unreal." Did this work dent the New York Times best seller list? No. Did it deserve to? Hmmm... My opinion sides with "No." Do Darger's emotional and mental issues factor into my view of Darger as a writer? Possibly, but then this moves us into issues of what does it mean to be educated? What does it mean to be "properly trained?" Darger stopped attending school very early on.

Is it possible for a person whom society would regard as educationally or mentally deficient (not in keeping with generally recognized standards of performance) to be an author?

Hmm... More complications.

Mr. Smith