/lit/ - Literature

>>19173596
>>19174004
Hi anons, it's very kind of you to say. I don't think I'm an amazing writer by any means, but I'll try my best to answer your questions:

>What is your story about?
The first one published was a southern gothic/Flannery O'Connor-esque short story with religious undertones. The one that's just been accepted follows a woman reminiscing about her childhood following her brother's suicide, also with a heavy religious theme. All my writing has varying religious aspects because that's something that formed a large part of my own upbringing, and it's something I know intimately, so it comes across as authentic when I write it.

>Can you post an excerpt
I'm reluctant to post too much before the stories are officially printed, but here's a short extract from the project I'm currently working on. My writing style is very consistent across everything I produce, although pic related is still a first draft. I know I abuse semi-colons but there are worse vices! Once the stories are published I can post links here, though.

>How long?
I've been writing on and off since I was really small, like 7 or 8, I've always loved English and I have a first class degree in English literature where I took creative writing modules. I go long long stretches without writing anything though, I'd be much more successful if I was consistent.

>Biggest improvement?
Literally reading and writing as much as possible. And reading the good stuff. Be an elitist. Read Joyce, Eliot, Henry James, Proust, Chekhov, Flaubert, Nabokov, Woolf, Tolstoy. All of those writers have helped me massively in forming an unconscious sense of what should or shouldn't be changed when drafting. Read essays, too, Orwell's and Woolf's are great, as are DFW's, and poetry here and there also helps develop an aesthetic taste. Put it into practice by consistently writing, try knock out a short story every ten days then move onto the next one. It really doesn't take that long to produce a 3k or 4k word short story. The real magic happens in the polishing stage, which is where all that beauty you subconsciously assimilated while reading steers you to make the right choices.

>What is your day job?
I'm a civil servant and tend to write in the morning during my commute, on weekends, and occasionally lunch breaks. Very often I'll read instead, though. If you don't read you won't make it.

>Publishing
I was convinced as a straight white conservative male I didn't have a chance, but I've been published fairly quickly. Erika Krouse has a list of 500 lit mags, google it and pick ones that match the sort of style of your writing. If you write genre fiction, you don't want to submit to a literary journal, etc. Also make sure your manuscripts are properly formatted, with correct font and size, margins, spacing, indentation, etc. Generally, though, just write a really good story - that's what it comes down to.