Vincent van Gogh: Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat [obverse: The Potato Peeler] (1887)
"Here I come!"

Writing might be the very most introverted activity ever devised. Authoring, a staging and performing of the writer's product, seems the opposite. As a writer, I've long wondered who I thought I was writing for, with various responses, though I mostly seem to be writing to and for myself, as insular and recursive as that might seem. Authoring's queuing up that internal stuff for more public distribution and consumption, from the perspective of the writer's solipsistic whispering, an audacious act. Posting my pieces began as tiny outrageous acts, duck and cover operations, as if I was chucking each one over a sturdy wall to splat down near unnamed targets. As I attracted an audience, the possibility of becoming an adviser arose, but I've mostly chosen to share the echoing I witness happening within my head. Any advice I might give tends to come obliquely, by example, the transcribed dialogue between me, myself, and I. I lack the self confidence to otherwise promote my internal dialogues. I've mostly just chucked them over walls like unguided missiles, hopeful that they won't do too much damage or spark too awfully many complaints.

Authoring drags that self-effacing operation out of its closet, or seems to threaten to.

Tags: #Authoring , #PureSchmaltz