You’re An Author? On What Authority?

Everybody wants to rule the world. Everybody wants to be an author for the same reason. The word “author” refers to someone who has authority vested in him or her by virtue of the fact that he or she is an expert on the subject, has at least some degree of experience in it, has perhaps some technical proficiency in it and has some message relating to the subject. An author might also simply be someone who has a message based on life experience and insights and would like to share those.

WritingI see messages in many places encouraging people to become authors, to publish something, whether in written, aural, video or visual art form. Perhaps the implication that if one were a published author, one would be recognised as an expert even if what happened to be published were nothing short of unreadable crap which actually happens to appeal to many. Trouble is, it seems that people do read a lot of that unreadable crap! Tells us a lot about where society is headed.

Do you want to jump on that bandwagon? Feed more junk to consumers already dying of malnutrition? Or will you buck the trend and produce content that you know people need but might not think they want?

Then just start. Start somewhere. You don’t need to start with a book. You can start by just blogging about things you care about. Enthusiasm is infectious, so don’t just blog for the sake of blogging, but go ahead and experiment anyway! If you want, you can also try writing articles for the press, magazines and the like. I tried a few of those, but I stopped after a while because I found that not much on those sites interested me, and it became a chore to continue writing. You might have a different experience, so go ahead and write. Write about stuff you’re expert at, or at least good at. I wouldn’t write about mathematics or music in depth, I’m no expert. I might refer to some aspect of music or mathematics in order to illustrate something, but definitely not on technical matters. I do the same when referring to law. I WOULD like to write about geopolitical forecasting, but I haven’t got the expertise. I read as much as I can about it in the meantime. Remember, too, that just because you’re interested in certain subjects or have areas of interest doesn’t mean you should write about them. Refer to them, certainly, but not write as an authority. Write more about stuff that you are reasonably an authority of.

Ready to start writing?

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