/lit/ - Literature

>>18576242
I'm 31. It would be great to secure a permanent, tenure-track job at some point, at a semi-decent University. I actually prefer teaching to research, which is unusual in my experience among academics. I almost went the high school teaching route, but my interests were at a higher level than I would be able to discuss at high school. I did tutor high school students for an income throughout my BA, MA, and PhD though. It would of course be brilliant to have my novel published and be able to sustain myself with that, but Im not delusional.

However, if you have a well-received novel or two you can segue into being a creative writing professor. I've met a couple of these and let me tell you, they have it easy. As an English Literature academic I can only talk about English Literature, and since I specialise in a 150ish year span I only talk and teach on a select few writers. Thankfully I have Shakespeare, who sustains infinite discussion. But Creative Writing professors can talk about Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Proust, Henry James and Mann all in the same lesson if they wanted to, without having to speak the language. Total freedom, not purely in the sense of lesson plans and teaching style (all academics have that) but because creative writing will never be solely academic they have free reign to do whatever the hell they like and, generally, the good writers in class will produce good stuff anyway - the work shopping among students is what increases the quality. So, yeah - getting a couple novels published and transitioning to a creative writing gig would be great longer term.

I did my best to incorporate the suggestions y'all gave me a few days ago. Can anyone give a critique of this new opening?

It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination for some days. An expedition, I should say, which I will undertake alone, in the comfort of Mr Farraday's Ford; an expedition which, as I foresee it, will take me through much of the finest countryside of England to the West Country, and may keep me away from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days. The idea of such a journey came about, I should point out, from a most kind suggestion put to me by Mr Farraday himself one afternoon almost a fortnight ago, when I had been dusting the portraits in the library. In fact, as I recall, I was up on the step-ladder dusting the portrait of Viscount Wetherby when my employer had entered carrying a few volumes which he presumably wished returned to the shelves. On setting my person, he took the opportunity to inform me that he had just that moment finalised plans to return to the United States for a period of five weeks between August and September. Having made this announcement, my employer put his volumes down on a table, seated himself on the chaise-longue, and stretched out his legs. It was then, gazing up at me, that he said:
"You realize, Stevens, I don't expect you to be locked up here in this house all the time I'm away. Why don't you take the car and drive off somewhere for a few days? You look like you could do with a break."

The short story I'm writing is shit. Should I bin it or is it worth finishing regardless?

Also, I've been writing short stories to improve before attempting a full novel. Is this worthwhile, or should I just say "fuck it" and start writing the work I really care about?

I don't share the bourgeois literati's obsession with death and dying, so I find most great books of the last two hundred or so years tiresome. Share books that are subtle, witty, life-affirming, and most of all, beautiful, in language and in content.