[-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology: Authorship

[Scott Rettberg]

Hello again,

In the next few days I want to pick up more on some of Johannes'  
questions and Simon's thoughts and some of the interesting ways in  
which the idea of authorship is challenged and reformulated. I also  
think there are some things to consider about the economics of  
electronic literature (to the extent that there are any). Finally, I  
want to say a few words about why I think there hasn't yet been a  
great deal of activity in creative writing programs towards developing  
curricula for digital writing.

As I wrote earlier, I think that the conception of authorship as a  
solitary activity conducted by the creatively inspired individual has  
always been more mythological than real. True, writing is very much a  
reflective / recursive process, in which the individual wrestles with  
his or her own ideas and then frames them as textual expression. It is  
an intensely personal activity. Few print novels or poems are actually  
*written* collaboratively.

But the process of writing involves more than that work, more than  
those moments of framing thought. Stories emerge most often from the  
examples and archetypes or other works of literature that the author  
has read. Stephanie Meyer's Twilight books or JK Rowling's Harry  
Potter would not have been possible in the same way without Bram  
Stoker's Dracula or Le Guin's Earthsea novels, which might not have in  
turn been possible without JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Works of  
literature have always been produced in conversation with other  
writing. Most of those writers, in turn, work in conversation with and  
in close proximity to other writers. When Tolkien was writing Lord of  
the Rings, for instance, he was bringing drafts of it to the Eagle and  
Child Pub in Oxford and reading them aloud to his writer's group, the  
inklings, which included CS Lewis, whose Narnia books Tolkien  
disapproved of at the time. Those readings, and the discussions about  
the books the inklings were writing at the time, are undoubtedly a  
significant part of the process of authoring those books, regardless  
of whose name ended up on the volume.

The writing process is most often social. The contemporary writing  
workshop at American universities is social writing practiced on an  
industrial scale. And once the book is accepted by a publisher, this  
process continues, with editors, marketers, designers, typesetters and  
so forth contributing to the processing of producing, distributing,  
spinning the cultural artifact. And today's capital A Authors, those  
lucky few who actually live off of the proceeds of their work,  
collaborate with Oprah's book club, Charlie Rose, film-makers and  
video game producers. The author is not alone.

I would argue that the reason the name is on the book is in such bold  
type is not even really because the author is much more important than  
any other part of the process. The name of the author is on the book  
because it provides the publishers with an entity to contract, and to  
purchase the rights from, and to own the proceeds of, and to sell  
again. The author is a signature on a contract as much or more than it  
is a human being.

Another authorship story:

The writer of digital literature suddenly finds the tools of design at  
hand, a global distribution network at a click, and a small but  
responsive international audience in the inbox. This is a different  
sort of authorship, liberating but unromantic. This sort of author  
understands the whole process in a different way, in part because she  
is seeing the whole process in a different way, in part because her  
audience is seeing the whole process in a different way, and in part  
because she is operating in an entirely different sort of environment  
and system than she might have been tutored in during her years in  
writer's workshop.

She will never get rich doing this. She will never sell the film  
rights. She will never do many things that capital A authors do. She  
will likely live a more or less normal life and you will not recognize  
her on the street. She will be like many famous poets in this way. She  
will on the other hand have the opportunity to work outside of the  
system inherited from centuries past, or participate in the building  
of a new one.

She will realize the complex layers of authorship involved in writing  
using platforms that are themselves authored.  In doing so, she will  
become unauthor as she authors. She will lend, borrow from, steal, and  
give in the process of writing and building literary artifacts. She  
will be conscious of these acts. She will build with samples and feeds  
and the inputs of an unimaginably large choir. She will play in a huge  
sandbox with many toys, and quite likely few observers would  
understand what she is doing or why. And then, of a sudden, maybe . . .

This, I think, will be fun.

Watching these scientists at work, systematically experimenting with  
hybrid creatures born of the word and some friends (images, moving  
pictures, sound, code), and some other things that just wandered into  
the party unnoticed, it will be fun.

It will be a regenerative period for authorship. It already is.

All the Best,

Scott