What I See

"An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children." Benjamin Disraeli

I am not a big web surfer. I don't even visit pages of personal interest very often. But sometimes I wander onto a published author's homepage. And my impression is this: that in order to be a published author, you must have a certain degree of merit and quality to your writing, it must be what the market wants at the time, and your visible personality must include a very big head. Your website must list, in painstaking detail, your accomplishments, big and small, literary and otherwise, dating back even to your elementary career, with little to no apology or humility. You also need glamour shots. Many, many glamour shots done in the most complimentary fashion. You are allowed to thank inspirations, but make sure it is in a lyrical fashion and quite brief.
What I think I am detecting is a lack of elegance, a lack of a balanced selling of one's talents and appropriate humility. But then, I understand that after any author's triumph of publication, the task of keeping perspective might be quite difficult.

Bernheim Arboretum in the fall, near Bardstown, KY.

And so that I don't seem too accusatory or judgmental, I hold this mirror up to myself and am reminded of what my dearest author, C S Lewis, has to say on pride, "... the more we have it (pride) ourselves, the more we dislike it in others." And are able to detect it in others.