Authorship

Years ago, I read somewhere that writers in medieval times sometimes did not sign their writings because they believed God had actually written them – and I’ve always found a grain of good sense in that approach to authorship. I’m not a religious person in the traditional sense (I don’t believe in the conventional God who rewards some and punishes others), but I do have great respect for the immeasurable force (whatever name it might be given) that surrounds and saturates this universe of which we writers are a part. When I write, words somehow come to rest on my computer screen, but how this happens is a far-reaching mystery to me. To take the easy path and say my brain creates the words is like saying clouds create rain. The actual origins of every raindrop go infinitely far back to the origins of the entire universe, and the origins of the words in my poems and paragraphs are every bit as shrouded in vastness and timelessness. It’s convenient for me to attach my name to my writings, just as it is convenient to say the bulb creates the light in my desk lamp, even though forces far more immense and complex than a single brain or light bulb actually do the creating.  

Here’s an old, happy guy doing – or allowing, or welcoming – his daily writing …