Author vs. Authority

As an almost self proclaimed writer myself, these two sections created much conflict with in me. Before I switched my major, and I told people I was majoring in Fiction Writing, I got several questions that I could not answer. "So you're a writer?" "You want to be an author?" and my favorite, "So it's not a real major?" 

To the first, "do I consider myself a writer?", I had no logical response. Yes, I was going to school to be a writer, but just like a doctor is not a doctor until he or she graduates from med school, I did not think I had the experience to call myself a writer, and therefore put myself in a category with writers I admired. I felt like i hadn't earned that title yet. 

So when the definition of Author came up in the text, I felt gratified in the TT's opinion that there was a distinction between author and writer. Maybe I could call myself a writer after all, even though I have not graduated, and the title i was earning was actually author, not writer. But then they bring up the argument of publication. This is where things got shady again. I have written "full-movements" (a piece I, as the writer of the piece, consider complete) and not published them, and likewise, many people have written pieces that will never be published. Are we still writers, if maybe not authors, just because we have not published these ideas we have put to paper? According to TT's definition of writer, I think so. After all, Emily Dickenson published under 20 of her poems in her lifetime (I think I have that statistic correct, though I could stand to be corrected without hurt feelings) and she is now, by most standards, an Author, an authority on poetry. I think trying to put a name to such things, like being a writer, is more of a self identification problem that any person with a pen and paper needs to decide for him or herself. 

I sort of answered that second question too, do I want to be an author? but I could elaborate I suppose. If by TT's standards, author-ship (if that's a word) and authority go hand in hand, then, yes, I want very much to be an author. I hope to have the authority to write about a topic based on the time and money I've put into school and to have my opinions respected, to be considered as accurate. Isn't that why we go to school in the first place? To get people to listen to us and not scoff at our opinions? So, in my educated/professional opinion, I believe the title of Author is somewhat more prestigious than that of "Writer," and is not a matter of self identification to any one person with a published or un-published piece of work.

The last question ("So it's not a real major, as in, its fictional?") was a joke.

So, with that little bit of background, I take on Question 1 of the Author/ity chapter of TT.

Can the parody be both a joke and a serious, academic piece of work. Yes. 

The author is a physicist, an educated individual in the area he is writing about. Knowing that, we give him the benefit of the doubt that in his parody his information is correct, even though it is, in his opinion, trivial. So it is academic. Now, to those devoted readers of this journal, his topic is both respected, and informed. It can still be creditable, because, as far as we know, the author had the authority to write on this topic. Example: as an exercise in my former fiction writing days, we as students, were told to parody pieces of known work, so to learn style and structure from those authors. The movie 10 things I Hate About You was a parody of a Shakespearian play. We consider Shakespeare an authority in literature and in performance, and Heath Ledger is considered an authority in acting (He was recognized at the SAG awards to be among the great actors and actresses that have past.) Therefore, 10 Things I hate About You is both a "parody and a serious piece of scholarly inquiry," to use TT words exactly.