"It's a bit like sitting on a island, writing SOS-messages, putting them in bottles and eventually throwing them into the sea ... - some of them are caught by the tide and, after a while, get washed back on the beach, while others seem to disappear forever." - Anna Varney of Sopor Aeternus discussing releasing her music.
When Anna Varney finishes an album of music she releases it as she describes above; chucking it out there and ignoring any feedback, all the while trying to relieve herself of negativity. Most writers, however, just simply want to tell a story. We've had ideas constrict our sanity, prompts that have made us scream with joy and a passage that took a few glasses of wine and far too many cigarettes to finish. We complete it, leave it, go over it again and maybe leave it a bit longer. Some, for a while, others; forever.
If a story is a letter to the world then Barthes' The Death Of The Author is spot on. We shouldn't consider the biography of the author because the message is within the text (or series of text's) that we have been presented with. We don't need to consider the Author's life to discover new meaning and its likely it could dilute our ideas and enjoyment of the tale. For example, if you knew that Lewis Carroll was allegedly a drug-addict and a paedophile, would it corrupt your reading of Alice In Wonderland? If so, then whoops.
So what do I do then? Do I have an audience in mind? Do I write to myself or Do I write for myself? Since I've began writing this I have far too many questions that are festering in my head. I guess I write for myself most importantly. I exorcise my thoughts and feelings and once they have been contained within something they become like a coffin in a catacomb. They are memorials, tributes to what I was feeling at the time. What I wanted to say and how.
So who am I writing to at the moment? You, I presume (Ha! You will probably be able to hear this in my voice). But who in the world am I writing to? God knows. Ask him.
Very entertaining piece, i like your use of the quote at the starts it leads into the question really well.
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