/lit/ - Literature

First, you emulate to master your medium. This is true for all students of art.

>The middle ages knew the poor scholar who was better acquainted with low taverns, cutpurses, prostitutes, argot, the intricate labyrinths of the slums, than with money for square meals, respectability, the elevations of life proper to learning. Perhaps for the last time in literary history, the novels of Joyce celebrate the confluence of curious erudition and the language of the streets. The university students of today do not, as Dr Johnson did, walk around with their toes sticking out of their boots, unless this happens to be an aspect of student /couture/, and they do not hug tattered books joyfully picked up on street-stalls. Enforced urban poverty and higher education no longer go together. This is good, but it means no more Stephen Dedaluses.
Gone are Jack Keroaucs, hitching around the country without money. The writers of today are too bourgeoisie. They have never gone days without eating, never slept on the streets, never been drenched in the rain. They drink bottled water, order take out, watch Netflix, listen to rap, wear clean shoes, change their clothes, &c. Ironically, they have the galls to say David Foster Wallace is too privileged.

When you commit suicide, you've truly lost.

If you write, even if it's a little bit of shit poetry here and there, you are still producing and doing something worthwhile. Never forget that.