Everyone’s An Author

Everyone’s an author today. Yet, there was a time when you actually had to know how to write before calling yourself an author. God, how times have changed.

I think back fondly to the days of Twain, Hemingway, Faulkner and countless others. These were people who could write the English language with superb talent and share with all of us the wonders of their pens. They are part of a large fraternity of writers who are for all time truly authors.

Today, thanks to the internet, everyone’s an author. You can self publish your books without regard to writing talent, content or even the ability to write. On Amazon alone, there are nearly 800,000 titles available and many are from folks who can’t write a coherent sentence or present content that appeals to less than a dozen people. However, all of these people are authors and have “published” a book. Bravo!

Then there is the plethora of writing that is seen on web pages, everything from Facebook to Linkedin to WordPress to Twitter to God knows what. These forums also allow everyone to be an author, sometimes with hilarious results. The obvious lack of skill with grammar, spelling and basic writing is consistently appalling. A good 90 percent of these authors never learned the difference between to and too and that is, as they would say, to bad. Grammar, spelling and content are not egghead abstracts. They are the very stuff of accurate communication that is required of all authors.

The new shorthand of the millennial generation (and old farts that want to be millennials) also thwarts many would be authors. If you insist on writing in shorthand, abbreviations and code, you are sure to miss a good percentage of your intended audience. To make matters worse, if you can’t even spell the word or the abbreviation, you are in obvious trouble. Yes, I know some are lol at this very moment but if you can’t spell laughing or the abbreviation, you might want to consider something else on your resume besides author. See: https://rizziallen.wordpress.com/2016/10/14/ru-miseducated-lol/

All of this is not to say that to be an author also requires one to be a Rhodes Scholar or some bow-tied literature professor. But insisting on a little competency is not asking too much. Writing is a learned skill and many people in today’s world just don’t want to spend the time and effort to learn. It takes some exertion  after all. But why should they expend the energy? In today’s world, everyone’s an author.

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Read author Allen E. Rizzi’s latest books available at Amazon.com