/lit/ - Literature

>>20942587
inb4 more talking shit about people you think are schizophrenics which trivializes actual mental health issues.

K goodnight fuckers.

>>20942595
woahwoahwoah looks like we caught ourselves a real schizo
&amp would be incredibly gracious if you were to submit some of your thoughts on paper for the next issue
(if you're not schizo then BPD, melancholia, and pedophilia are also acceptable conditions, and thank you for your service, ma'am)

>>20942587
Black lives matter. At a liftetime cost to taxpayers of about 750k each (before Bidenflation) they are extremely consequential. Defund the blacks.

Currently revamping the best-of list. Starred entries are currently highest priority for getting into the issue, but I'd like commentary on the lower-ranked stuff as well. Stars just denote multiple recommendations for a single piece, so unstarred stuff just needs votes.

And if you think a piece sucks then say so (with a reason) and you can demote it.

>>20942595
No one talking shit about schizoposters actually thinks that they have schizophrenia. Go virtue signal elsewhere.

Anyway, here’s an American Psycho thread (schizo-free edition): >>20942662
I look forward to watching it either die right away or get derailed by losers immediately.

bump

>>20942624
I'll re-recommend (Untitled) [012] [p29 .pdf]. prose. I know I'm the only one talking about it, but reconsider it! I need someone to either back me up or veto the piece so I know I'm not insane

>>20943119
I've got it on the list, just not starred. Another anon is going through pieces now so I'll see if he has anything to say.

>>20943123
yeah, I checked the Google Doc earlier today. here's hoping!

>>20942595
>>20942676

>>20943136
I'll encourage you to go through and comment on pieces that haven't made it to the higher ranks yet. I want to be confident that the pieces going in are high-quality and well-liked.

Is the anon who wrote SuburbPunk still hanging around in these threads? That piece is up on the list and I really enjoyed it, so if you want to do any revisions then drop me a line at unofficial.drivel@gmail.com.

>>20943220
did you read all of them?
>high-quality and well-liked.
>talk shit
i dont want to complicate matters since theyre already starred but just to get a discussion going, i found noodle house to be unfocused and incohesive in an amateurish way and longing was too sentimental.

>>20943923
(>>20943136) here.
i disliked the prose in The Noodle House. i think i know the "vibe" the author is going for, but i don't think he quite grasped how to structure the prose to carry the theme. the dialogue is also stiff, which isn't inherently a problem, but it's stiff in an odd, uncomfortable, stilted way that makes me not feel like reading it.
to best-of-anon: i don't want you to take my post as a "downvote" (lol), but maybe you should get more thorough community feedback before you move on with the project. that might require a little more waiting, but i think it's worth it.

Alright, alright, ALRIGHT ALREADY! I've decided. I'll bring the art that's in such dire need around here. 2 SHORT STORIES AND 1 POEM. Okay? Just stop, for the love of god just stop. I'm tired. Leave me alone.

im not submitting anything until the editor comes back

>>20944023
editor is back. &amp is coming

bump

Should I just write an essay about American Psycho or what? Reviews for the-best-of will take priority, whenever anon gets back to me on that, but with all the discussion on AP and the book still fresh in my mind I thought about writing some about the story and the style.

>>20943923
>>20944002
It's not a problem, I'm glad to hear criticisms of the starred pieces. So far I haven't reviewed all of them myself, and most of the starred pieces are from multiple recs from other anons, but some are my favourites. I made the mistake of not keeping strict track of which I liked, so I'll get to that at some point.

And I'd like to get as much feedback as possible, but I also don't want to drag this out forever. I think there's a wide enough spread that the candidate list probably has the best pieces in it, and now it just needs to be pruned down. Fielding lists of favourites from anons was ultimately pretty slow and I only ended up with a handful of comprehensive ones, but I noticed enough overlap for them to be largely representative, I think.

If you want to comment on the pieces it's all here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TMyRTrB6SEjbDFkFixaMqNpr0--Fb3T9Pdv1x2s7Z7g/edit?usp=sharing

>>20944554
If you want to contribute reviews for the best-of, you can leave comments in the google doc that was linked by >>20944793.

I think it’d be cool to have more book reviews/commentary in &amp, so I’d say the American Psycho essay could be a good idea. All the discussion has almost made me want to check it out.

>>20945301
he returns

>>20945586
not editor, sorry to disappoint

>>20944017
What are your stories and poem about?

Bump

>>20944017
Do it.

>>20944926
Yep and in an hour I slapped together my outline. Besides the intro and conclusion I have about 10 topics to cover: 3 different tones in the narrative, 5 interesting writing style choices and why they fit, some intertextual analysis and theories, and a retrospective on Bateman as the internet understands him. Going to be a fun writeup.

>ywn read the original DickSuck
editor why did you do this to us?

>>20942587
do you accept non english poetry?

>>20945841
>>20946750
Haven't written them yet. Now that I think about it, perhaps I'll stick to 'essays' instead of stories.

>>20947774
Wtf i hate &amp now

>>20948586
can’t believe editor deprived us of this masterwork

>>20948282
get writing, hombre, time’s a’wastin

>>20947255
What narrative tones are you planning to focus on?

>>20949852
What I meant by that is I felt American Psycho has three modes of narrative: 80s fashion, Psychopathy, and Confession (his remorse, despair, desire to be loved). That is simple enough to illustrate it. The shape of the narrative to me was largely a fluctuation of these three voices from Bateman and his struggle to stay hip. I want to give examples of what those voices sound like, and then later show some techniques Ellis used to draw them out.

For issue 016 I want to submit a short story called ChickenPunk. I have no idea if it will be worth it, or what it's really about besides that mundane triumph of ordering a chicken biscuit combo---the most expensive breakfast combo. Am I exploring the taming the urge to splurge money on drivethrus, the malappropriation of money to women, the loyalty to a regional fried chicken restaurant? Im not sure yet. But there is something to be said about it.

&ump

I've never submitted anything before but will probably write some stuff for it this week. Maybe a bit of schizo stream of consciousness about my failures with women, maybe a bit of fantasy prose. We'll see

>>20951006
> schizo stream of consciousness about my failures with women

the purest essence of /lit/

>>20951101
I have a number of sitcom-level experiences

>>20951225
Sounds intriguing, tell me more

>>20951006
>stream of consciousness about my failures with women
Damn, are you me? Except it's mostly about fried chicken, optimism about the setting, so maybe it will be pretty different after all. I wish you luck with women.
Also I already wrote 1500 words about fried chicken already, what in the hell?

>>20949950
Interesting, do you feel like Bateman ever expresses the desire to be loved? I would say he desires admiration from his peers and social status, but he never seems to desire actual love/intimacy.

>>20951463
It's rare but there are a few scenes where he seems to express genuine interest in the potential that there is someone underneath his mask that can be loved, or even if there isn't, that Jean might naively believe there is and he might be loved anyways. The very first time he mentions Jean in the book he says he is most likely going to marry her one day, and the last scene with her ends with him staring at a baby stroller. So I think it's not out of the realm of possibility to say that he desires some kind of long term relationship regardless of how shallow it might be.

>>20951402
>fried chicken
amerifags ngmi

How long is the best of gonna be? Seems like there are a ton of pieces on the list

>>20948249
Yes, non-English poetry has been included in &amp before.

>>20951647
A good chunk of the list will be trimmed, and a lot of the pieces are incredibly short--much of the prose is under a page, and the poetry is even shorter. That said, I dunno how long it'll be in the end, and right now I'm mostly concerned with keeping the quality high on the pieces that make it in. Lots of good discussion has been happening in the list, so join in if you have something to say about any of the pieces.

>>20951742
When anons disagree about the quality of a piece, how do you handle it? Who makes the final call?

>>20951742
> Lots of good discussion
>its just the same 4 anons giving their stupid biased opinions

kek

>>20952127
Yes. You can join too, and then we'll have five stupid biased opinions.

>>20951920
If someone has sincere criticism of a piece then I'll probably just drop it outright. Lots of pieces just aren't interesting to one person or another, which is to be expected, but if they otherwise receive praise and don't have fundamental flaws then they'll probably make it through a few culls at least.

In the end I'd like to weigh all of the pieces next to each other. I think a lot of it will come down to how the pieces are assembled with respect to each other, considering some will fit better next to other pieces (I guess I'm trying to say that there isn't a single axis that things are being judged on). Once comparisons start to be made I think quality will be a little more obvious.

I don't want to make any executive decisions about what makes the final cut, so I'm hoping each piece will garner at least a little discussion. Almost everything on the list so far was recommended by one anon or another, or otherwise posted about in old &amp threads, so there's already general interest in the pieces beyond myself and the anons currently commenting on the document. I'd like more people contributing commentary, but I think a small panel is also okay so long as there's discussion.

So far I've been avoiding making any major moves or culls from the document, mostly to avoid confusion while re-organising the tables, but there are going to be a few steps of re-arranging happening soon. And, for an example, Tomboy Dream is a piece that I like (though it wasn't originally my recommendation) that'll probably be culled for criticism from other anons. I don't want to be a dick and use the best-of as my personal rag.

>>20951920
>Who makes the final call?
We've agreed that Big Hesh is the tiebreaker, although there's still some contention from Pringles and J Catsman

Anyone got ideas for the graphic design of the best-of? An anon suggested a very sexy yellow to me.

>>20952794
And I dunno what's up with the kerning on the numbers with the hyphen. Even had to swap in a hyphen from a different font. Fucking GIMP.

First draft on my burgerpunk story about a fried chicken drive-thru is done at 2400 words. Will submit for next month since I've already submitted two things for the upcoming.
Honestly I feel like this was even better than the some of the prior ones and I basically wrote it in a day. Maybe I am improving after all.

>>20952174
The design is nice, but I’m not a fan of that shade of yellow. I know it’s a subjective preference, but I find it a bit jarring. Someone in an earlier thread had suggested using colours inspired by 4chan themes in the best-of— what about changing the colour to match with either Yotsuba or Burichan?

>>20952174
It seems clear that some of the anons who are reviewing/recommending stuff have pretty different tastes. For example, there are pieces that have received praise (like Nahma, Noodle House, and Marginal Lives) that I dislike and view as fundamentally flawed, although other anons seemed to really enjoy them. But, when reviewing stuff, I’m always at least somewhat open to changing my mind about the ones I dislike if another anon gives a convincing explanation as to why they think the piece is good and should be included. Likewise, if someone suggests removing a piece that I’m a fan of, I try to be objective and consider their criticisms, because sometimes my preferences are shaped by what I find personally relatable rather than what is objectively skillful/well-written. I guess my point is that it seems like the decision process should be less of a vote/veto system and more of an ongoing dialogue, with people explaining the rationale behind their likes/dislikes (however briefly). Which I think is in alignment with what you’ve said here about the importance of discussion.

> Tomboy Dream
What’d you find good/interesting about that one? I thought it was reasonably well-written but extremely cliché in subject, to the point that I found it off-putting.

> I don't want to be a dick and use the best-of as my personal rag.
we all know that the best-of issue is just an elaborate scheme you came up with to get all of your submissions republished and garner critiques. thought you could get away with it, huh? well, too bad—your dastardly plot has been exposed. I’m starting a petition to have you cancelled.

jk jk, we all appreciate your efforts. BUT— using that shade of yellow is a crime.

siamo tutti a pochi respiri dall'Oblio
e quei pochi respiri che mi mancano
li voglio passare con te
ti amo Giulia

>>20953131
>using that shade of yellow is a crime.
oh no! i was the anon who recommended it! it's a nice yellow, isn't it?

>>20953600
It's a very strong yellow, perhaps so strong it becomes a bit garish.

>>20953600
I was exaggerating, although I agree with >>20953654 that it’s a very strong yellow, verging on garish. Also, the black and yellow combination reminds me of road signs like the ones in pic related. But these things are really a matter of personal taste.

I’m sorry anon, please don’t take it personally

>>20953654
i see. that could be true. this might sound like i'm grasping at straws, but do you think it could be a difference in how our screens display the colour?

here's some of the stuff i came up with. best-of-anon will upload more later:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qRXh4G2gpY1Pt1-i-Y1HteeN947FEmXp

>>20953715
no, no, it's alright! when i chose the colour, i had these road signs in mind too. and also those notebooks that come in multiple, bright colours. opinions like these are valuable. you just saved us.
but i can't lie, man, those road signs are pretty dank. thanks for the picture

>>20953720
Could be, I'm using a laptop at the moment, its digital vibrance is pretty much standard. Those title pages look great, by the by.

>>20953737
alright, then. yeah, we might drop the yellow cover, but we'll be thinking of more covers along the same general idea (bright colour, desaturated text). if not, i think we'll go for a black cover with white text that looks a bit like the title page in the drive, but we'll come to a final decision after much discussion with and feedback from other anons. i'm hoping more people start reviewing the pieces in the main google doc, so if you have the time, maybe drop by?
>Those title pages look great, by the by.
thank you very much!

>>20953768
the yellow is good but doesnt fit the contex. some of the other covers like the desert one or the black one with the hand are better.
>>20953131
>inspired by 4chan themes
that would only fit a minority of pieces

>>20954361
>the yellow is good but doesnt fit the contex
yeah, that one's a drive-fattener to make it seem like we have more going on. i think best-of-anon will upload all his designs soon too.

if you have any designs for the cover and layout please post them in this or email best-of-anon (unofficial.drivel@gmail.com) and we'll upload it! need more people contributing here on the visual front to make up for our acute lack of editor-anon's design skills

Submitting the flash fic after work. I thought &amp might hold me back somehow but it's whet my desire to write a lot more. Good times ahead.

>>20954421
&amp is coming

>>20954502
so am i

>>20947774
im crying

>>20952794
What do you call this old splotchy vomit style?

>>20954886
i call it post-modern abstract realism

>>20952794
Made me think of the Tryptic

>>20952794
Needs to be glitched out and some background quotes. I like the yellow.

>>20952794
Last suggestion

>>20954886
this just looks like the average antique hardcover book. i've seen these around. on places like ebay and in online archives

>>20954925
Thinking of something more modern?

>>20954929
oh, no, i'm not calling it bad, i thought you were just insulting it. i don't mind either way.

>>20954961
Ah. I'd say background and border are very plain. I'd lean towards changing border. Islamic art, antique book cover, even something handdrawn or icons representing each story... idk.

>>20954984
Or somehow a textured yellow?

>>20954361
>4chan theme
I think it could work as a cover while keeping the interior styling black and white, though admittedly my mock-up looks pretty meh (pic related).

>>20954886
>>20954899
>>20954907
It'd be cool if we could get a design like that mocked up, but I think we have to watch our expectations. I think we'd be better off following simpler design sensibilities like you see in Oxford World's Classics or Penguin Classics--keep it looking classy without having to sorry about too many intricacies.

>>20953720
I really like Idea 6, but it feels too busy for a cover. As a back cover or interior page I think it'd be sick, though. My only critique is that the spacing between letters and the edge are uneven (happens with the changing size of "&amp").

>>20953131
Sorry I haven't elaborate on Tomboy Dream. I'll re-read it later and see what else I can draw out of it, but I specifically remember liking the last paragraph where the narrator's age seemed to shrink--adult to middle school to child in a sandbox. I thought that was an interesting device that lent itself to the infantile element of the obsession with a cliché ideal. That and the gay urges that broke through made it better than the cliché it presented. I took the whole thing to be tongue in cheek on the surface and much more about some deep sense of loneliness rather than about tomboys at the core. I'll accept a loss on this one in the end if nobody else sees it that way, though.

It's worked so far, so I guess I'll just ride this thing out.

>>20953600
Don't worry, anon, I like your yellow.

>>20955071
I like the font and colors. How about this background?

>>20955089
Kek i almost thought this was a high resolution wall of text

>>20955089
I'm a little skeptical of using a textured background on the cover. If we get this thing printed it'll probably be a heavy glossy paper and I think the texture would look odd in that context.

I'm partial to the black and yellow cover I mocked up, honestly. It's simple and distinct, and while the Futaba/Yotsuba colours were originally my idea, I'm losing my faith in them. It'd be disingenuous to pretend &amp and the best-of aren't outgrowths of 4chan, but I don't know if I want to marry them to 4chan thematically. Part of my interest has been in presenting the best pieces in their own context, still showing some of the style/ethos/theme of &amp/4chan, but without being overshadowed by the association.

I gotta get my ass to my office, but I'll try to do more tonight. I've also been neglecting the list, so I'll pore over the comments and try to properly arrange things--hopefully I'll get it to V3 tonight and we can do some new rounds of reviews. (I'd also like to find a way to archive the comments so they aren't accidentally lost, but I'll do it manually if it comes down to it.)

>>20954899
I'm glad you're thinking of my Shit Triplets, buddy.

>>20955089
I dislike the idea of a textured background for the cover— I think it’d make the design appear cluttered and amateur. We’d be better off going with a more simple, minimalist look, imo.

>>20954984
yeah. i like what you're saying, but i think a cover of that sort ([...] Islamic art, antique book cover [...]") would seem a bit tacky if the book wasn't actually bound in high-quality leather hardcover. textured backgrounds like this >>20955013 and >>20955089 would be great, but imagine how it would look printed. it's like seeing a plastic tube on which the texture of bark has been pasted. it feels cheap.
i think we should wait until &amp has more issues and we have enough best-of entries to make a high quality, hardcover, leather-bound book with gold-leaf text and intricate islamic abstract art around the border. can't wait for that day.

>>20955071
>I really like Idea 6, but it feels too busy for a cover.
i agree.
>As a back cover or interior page I think it'd be sick, though.
i think it would be cool to have after the contents page
>the spacing between letters and the edge are uneven (happens with the changing size of "&amp").
i don't mind it, but the issue is that the ampersand (&) leaves a bunch of negative space which exacerbates the unevenness.

as i was writing this (>>20955143) and (>>20955164) posted. yup. i agree wholeheartedly with your points about texture.

>write first person past tense
>keep slipping into first person
>edit it back into past
>look at some words hesitantly and realize I have no grasp on good grammar whatsoever
bros

>>20955143
Ah, I was imaging matte.
Something about that border then?

>>20955208
it's alright. you'll get the hang of it. keep writing.

>>20953720
Idea6 pretty good

I like the yellow cover so far the most; I really like the font too (not so much the other, sans serif ones – and in those cases, however unofficial, you might be better off using the &amp logo font [don’t know its name, but it’s standard on Canva], at least for the “&amp”), but this font, I say, I do like – though I’m not a 100% on the italic “of”, or the thickness of the black border? I don’t think the wording or title are final yet, but empty and minimal as it is I generally do think is a good call; also agree on the sentiments above about more detailed, textured covers: it’s important how it would look as a physical object.

>>20955282
i think the font for the &amp logo is futura. what is the default on canva?

>>20955282
yeah, i was going to say: the italic "of" is a bit jarring.

>>20955208
>>write first person past tense
>>keep slipping into first person
if this was intentional, you're a fucking genius. laughed out loud

>>20955282
What about

>>20955302
think it's 'League Spartan'

>>20955438
ah, so very, very similar to Futura

>>20955390
I like the text but the design less so – it gives me kind of passé alt-lit vibes, and while I think the yellow works in the other one, here it does give off more of a power-tools look

>>20955321
Unfortunately it wasnt, I meant to write first person present tense in the second line. Worst of all, I dont get the joke.

>>20955451
Oh you're right, it's probably just a Futura clone,—not sure which &amp is, but given that editor always designed in Canva where only the clone is standardly available, I figured it was that

>>20955458
>power-tools look
Fuck Dewalt. All my homies buy Ryobi

>>20955483
>mfw Canva recommends to save in jpg
>becomes moon runes for ants
>saveas PDF and convert to png
>totally fine

>>20955488
What about Milwaukee Red?

>>20955501
Nah. Ryobi is where it's at.

>>20955465
>Unfortunately it wasnt, I meant to write first person present tense in the second line. Worst of all, I dont get the joke.
ah, it's alright. it isn't that funny, i just had a moment there. i thought you were demonstrating your perceived ineptitude in a very meta way. don't worry, man. keep at it. i can recommend bryan a. garner's modern english usage if you want a pretty reliable usage dictionary, by the way!

>>20955390
the text in this should replace the word "pieces" with "works." i should also redesign the text to fit in an actual rectangle. the way it just ends in the middle is very awkward. in the thumbnail, the 9th line looks like it has two eyes. wow, this was bad. i regret having uploaded this

>>20955483
ah, alright. i'll admit i tried to look for a free futura clone on canva but failed to do so. thanks for the tip. i should go back and re-edit everything i've designed for &amp in League Spartan instead of Open-Sans Extrabold.

>>20955488
>>20955501
>>20955513
DEWALT forever, chumps.

>>20955496
i haven't had this problem. just click file and download as a .png

>>20955513
Okay, RyobiPunk when? I mowed my lawn with a battery powered Ryobi pushmower and collapsed on my living room floor after all the exertion. Very nice to not have to store a gas can at home though.

>>20955524
Maybe their old tools

>>20955390
>>20955524
I feel like it's a step in the right direction, just needs some alterations.

>>20955535
Ryobi trimmer and handtools. I'll use my Toro pushmower until Denver stops me.

>>20955566
>>20955580
i am insanely interested in this and i have to resist the urge to go into an all-night google rabbithole about powetools now. goddamnit. just yesterday i was up googling a small 2005 music festival somewhere in the eastern U.S. as a result of having found out that a maryland band played there, and i was researching that band because i found out that a musician i'm a fan of once played for them between 2004 and 2005.

>>20955624
POWERPUNK
POWERPUNK

>>20955662
Based.

>>20955535
>>20955662
You're giving me ideas when I'm supposed to be working. Somehow Big Black seems like the right music to go along with this kick. Maybe because they do all their credits like
>astroboy albini on the rocket guitar
>tobor (eight-man) durango on the hammer guitar

>powerpunk
It's a billion electric motors ripping down concrete corridors, three billion sweaty public servants in hi-vis switching in and out shift-wise. Tools the same as you'd see the last seventy years (minus the lawnmower, for which the lawns themselves disappeared the last decade): power washers, hedge trimmers, weed whackers, power saws and drills, jackhammers, electric fly-swatters, and so on. All in their special brand of deep, saturated yellows and greens and reds, a few in neon, and wrapped in black trim. This is the age of Dewalt. This is the age of Ryobi. This is Black and Decker communism. Because people need jobs, right? And all this brick and mortar and ashphalt, concrete boxes, slabs, and coffins, they all still got weeds ripping through the cracks, right? And when Artificial Intelligence runs the whole deal--no such thing as a writer or a painter or a banker or a politician et-ceter-ah anymore--we still gotta give jobs to all those still desperate to work. We ain't yet in the age of robotic bushwhackers (give it two decades before we trust a robot with blades in public), so humanity's workforce has been placed in public service: slashing weeds, blasting stains, drilling holes, making noise. You've never seen cities so bare, so stripped back--Brutalism has returned in full force. We gave every Dick and Tom a power tool and now they gotta use them, gotta earn their keep: so no leaf falls, no weed grows, no paint chips without some public servant (private slave) coming along with his state-funded power tool.

>>20955781
i really like this. good fucking shit, anon. great, great piece. gotta iron out some wrinkles there, but this is prime /lit/. i don't understand "This is Black and Decker communism," though. i've never studied economics a day in my life, but i thought corporations didn't like communism?

>>20955781
ripe for a short &amp §ubmission

>>20955781
top kek what have I done

>>20955781
holy shit. have you submitted to &amp before?

>no appointments
>no assessments
>no financing
>no handshake
>do not have to be present or leave the door unlocked or locate the appliances, circuitbreaker and water shutoff.
>just the wail of handheld machines as laborers approach your house, like Beatty's Salamanders, who have come to your residence in order to fix what cannot possibly be perfect

>>20955968
sounds based actually. just don't walk in when i'm jerking off to loli hentai

>>20952794
The Savage Green stole it from Harassment Architecture first

anyone who's interested in contributing to the best-of issue can do so by reviewing and recommending pieces here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TMyRTrB6SEjbDFkFixaMqNpr0--Fb3T9Pdv1x2s7Z7g/edit)) or by posting graphic design-related stuff in this thread. more graphic design stuff for best-of issue is here (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qRXh4G2gpY1Pt1-i-Y1HteeN947FEmXp).). thanks

>>20956159
When you say review I thought you meant writing more than a blurb. What kind of input did you want? I was anticipating an email reply until I saw this.

Sick of all these Honicker colours mane

I deed it

>>20956185
stuff like that would also be really really great, and if you're willing to and have the time, please do it! you can email unofficial.drivel@gmail.com or just post the blurb as a comment in the google drive. thanks!

>>20956195
He used to be cool, man

>>20956195
what are honicker colours?

>>20956203
Sure thing! I will be reading 6 hours tonight, back to my 5 hours of sleep schedule. Surely I can review some things and then get back to my...damn man I really do work all the time. But it's fun I suppose.

>>20956233
>damn man I really do work all the time
sounds rough, but also, if your work is something you're passionate about, you've pretty much already made it. thank you for your time

>>20955781
What disappeared alongside the lawns is in some ways surprising: the firearm has had a long absence. A reactionary take may blame it on the gun-grabbing rhetoric that once dominated, but the real reason is more natural than that: the manufacturers that produced finely-bored barrels and ergonomic stocks took an obvious detour once state funding arose to enable power tool dependence. The second amendment was not effaced but made obsolete, since now every man, woman, and child has their personal arsenal of saws and blades and drills and hydraulics. (And the forests necessary for hunting have long been deceased.) Crime also becomes a confusing choice when your would-be victim wields a power saw, bystanders mulching dandelions with tools just as good at whacking flesh. This has ushered in a new paradigm--a new take on the age-old posse. What once came marching with nooses and pitchforks and torches, perhaps a few rifles, now comes with a hundred spinning blades and a convenient fleet of high-pressure hoses. Villains do not hang from trees or get cast into shallow graves, but are efficiently diced and then washed down the gutter stream--evidence does not need to be buried, and the hi-vis fabrics of today are strangely stain-resistant. Police have been out-moded. People feel strong wielding blades at nine-thousand rotations-per-minute and two-forty volts. Communities are safe in these days of power tool exactitude. Long live powerpunk.

>>20955968
Just how it oughta be, pal.

>>20955809
>>Black and Decker communism
Figurative.

>>20955858
I'm the anon organising the best-of. Been in all the literary issues of &amp since 010 or so under the name Ari.

>>20956159
>>20956203
You're a real bro, did you know that?

>>20956311
oh wow ari it's you? you're a top-class writer. very good stuff. insane. i don't know about anybody else but i'd read an entire book of just passages like this. pretty fitting you're the one organizing this whole best-of thing.
now i'm starting to think >>20953131 might have been right...
nah, just kidding. thanks for arranging all this. and thanks for vouching for the yellow.

>>20956311
i'm still thinking about this. this is rad as fuck. god damn. i love this shit so much. this is how writing should be. arising from a spark. explosive, expansive, wild, fun. i'm obsessed. this is the spirit of &amp. sorry

>>20956311
>high-pressure hoses.
protip: airlines without regulators can cause embolisms in the blood if held directly onto the skin. A lot of production plants and warehouses of these pressurized airlines where you can attach hoses and use it to power devices with air, but also to simply blow powder or dust away. At the production plant I used to work with, everyone on the paint line had one of the airline nozzles in their pocket, and most of us had the OSHA safety violation ones without regulators that can kill you because the ones with pressure relief valves couldnt blow worth a shit.

>>20956640
i love this production plant lore

>reading "The Only Computer Crime" to give it a review after adding blurbs for Void and Dog Killer
>remember that hellish youtube video link you used to get if you deleted the "h" from "watch" in a youtube link
>it is now gone
>the minecraft Christmas link by deleting the other letters is still there
Damn bros. Anyone know where it went? It was like one of those flashing monotonous images you get stuck with in abstract nightmares, the kind that game Yume Nikki had.

Monsoon

Another Day that these Rain Clouds Won’t Go Away,
The Sunless Sky and the World are All Dark and Gray.
The Songs of Birds and Sounds of Life that Cheer and Warm
Are Drowned Beneath the Hollow Howls of Wind and Storm.

And Now It Seems that All Around the Waters Rise,
The Light has Left from My Tired and Weary Eyes.
Everything Drenched, an Icy Chill has Pierced My Bones,
Distant and Dissonant, this Storm is Mine Alone.

And Yet through Dampened Hope I would Like to Know,
Will Colors and Feathers Return with a Rainbow;
When these Rain Clouds at Last All Start to Go Away?
Will I Even Be Able to Weather through to Such a Day?

>>20957156
wtf is this capitalization? dont just dump ur shit here, send it in through email or the website

>>20957220
Schizo Caps desu

(My browser keeps crashing so I will phonepost this for my third try)
Best-of-anon, do I keep reviewing stories with stars first? I am adding some to ones without comments yet.
And in general I have enjoyed finally tackling these short stories prompts of mine once a week like I used to intend. Just submitted the flashfic as promised and have another lined up for next issue.

>>20957368
Nah, my recommendation would be to review unstarred stories foremost since they're the ones being judged first for culling. Starred pieces already have multiple recommendations and are therefore likely to make it in and (by my thinking) best to review last. Normal titles have been recommended once and are up in the air for whether they'll be included, but an extra recommendation will bump it up a category and give it a star. Greyed entries are pieces that received a weak recommendation or which have been criticised harshly; unlikely to make it in, but further comments can bump them to mid or high status, and further criticism will just push them closer to being pruned.
>quick rundown
Recommendation bumps pieces up, criticism demotes them. Critique uncommented and unstarred pieces first, and check greyed pieces in case you happen to like one and want to save it from the cull.

>>20957400
Alright, I will read those next then. Gobspeed.

>>20956996
oh, i think it led to nana825763's Username 666.

>>20955390
Love it. Its got that over crowded schizo babble feel but also clean and concise.

>>20955488
I like my tools like my belief structures
>RIGID

>>20957732
isn't it ridgid?

>>20957757
I like my tools like I like my belief structures
>RIGGED

>>20957757
Yes, i am a retard.

>>20957769
it's alright i liked the joke

how gay is it to get anxious over if other peoples pieces are going to make it in or not?

>>20958020
for the best-of?

>>20958020
Endearing but also very gay. Which pieces are you rooting for, and have you been commenting?

>>20958020
i haven't been particularly "anxious," but i get what you mean. some of the stuff in &amp is so damn good and i'll be disappointed if any of the pieces i'm rooting for get cut.

and yes, it is gay.

>>20958020
Just say what you are hoping makes the cut.

>>20956778
I really should do a short story set in that place. Bandsaws cutting metal, EM welders making my watch go back in time, acetone in a mountain dew bottle with a duct tape label, "Get the fuck out of that box, Mary!", the free Christmas hams thrown from the CEOs pickup truck, my coworker missing a finger, the other a medschool dropout after he had sex with a patient, cleaning the sediment from bulbous water jets in a dark multistage wash with alkaline baths under the grate floor, me walking into a fucking oven just to keep up with plugging the threads, getting choked by an excon over a box of wires, rubbing MEK on metal with a dishrag, jesus christ what a job im glad i went to college

>>20959216
GMI

>>20958250
which ones are you footing for the most?

>>20961015
*rooting for

The best-of list has been reorganised and most pieces have at least a little bit of commentary, so hopefully tonight I'll move on to V3 and move pieces around according to the suggestions received. Still accepting suggestions, just refining the list and moving towards the final thing.

>>20961524
I just made my coffee I'm gonna read some more of these on the best-of spreadsheet.

Also new potential submissions for later, which interest you? I wanted to go for something kind rural or hometown feel.
>milkshakes on sale for a dollar at a highway restaurant
>a man and his two sons go fishing
>the machine shop
>the paint line
>a Pro-mod racing event

>>20961524
i have things to add on madness, tomboy and shit eater. also some pieces like shit eater that got praise are grey while the opposite like noodle house are starred but im guessing thats temporary

>>20961586
first one

>>20961629
Good taste.

>>20961586
People sell lemonade on the side of the road. Sometimes with cookies.
>the machine shop
>the paint line
Need to be more specific

>>20961659
Machine shop I barely have figured out what I want to do yet, but there's at least a motif of a cooling tower with engines that sound like a cicada that never stops. Lots of metal fabrication, oil, concrete, grungy stuff like that.
Paint Line is something like this >>20959216
Both of them are just different examples of blue collar jobs, the former I have access to at my current job, the latter I actually worked in.

>>20961703
Cooling tower I would expect petrochemical production or electricity generation. Machine shop I would expect big ass industrial fan

>>20961781
No, it's like an outdoor cooling tower. I'm not sure what the design is but they are for releasing waste heat from all the machinery. So there is an open bay with huge pipes coming out, engines behind the giant metal boxes with vents on the sides. I guess look up FRP or crossflow cooling towers, they all come in various builds and sizes depending on the needs of the facility.

>>20955535
battery-powered puch mowers are shit. get one that uses an extension cable so you can have the same power and forward movement as a gas mower, you rarely have to move the cable as long as you manage the slack well. battery powered weedwhackers are where its at though.

>>20961840
I know. The plant I worked at had one. The thing is, they're meant to exchange a crazy amount of heat (like a HTHP polyethylene reactor). It was along my path to the low temp reactors. I don't think a machine shop facility will need something like that.

>>20961904
Well for some reason they have one, at least that is what it says on the side near the ladders. Guess I need to ask around why they have it because I only recognize half the machines they got over there.
>anon on best-of google doc calls me K-anon
lmao, I'm not him but honestly hope he's up to something these days. Why didn't you all just message K-anon on twitter if you needed to contact him for Best-of? He plugged it before on Unreal's podcast.

>>20961921
Low humidity environment?

>>20961933
No, but it gets very hot, up to 100 Fahrenheit in the summer.
>just read 6 thoughts [03][pg58]
>Truth at Roswell part actually kind of cool
>rolled my eyes at the Last Generation
Interesting random thoughts, like a best friend chatting with you in the back of a restaurant or something, just not a story.

>>20961921
why do u relentlessly shill his shit then? anon doth protest too much, methinks

>>20962350
Because I bought the book and want him to do more because we have similar backgrounds and he was actually doing literary realism unlike most on /wg/, I respected that. I hate seeing people give up on those things, I used to do peer mentoring and saw lots of college students give up which is a similar kinda feel.

>>20962398
what do people on /wg/ write mostly?

>>20961524
Oh i like that cover

>>20961524
i love this. one of the best pages in an &amp issue ever.

>>20961586
Racing event, but remember I'm uninvolved in editing regular &amp issues.

>>20961629
Keep the commentary coming. The doc and link will be the same, I'll just be backing up V2 and renaming the current one to V3 before I make any substantial changes. Some pieces will probably descend from star status, and I was playing it safe with the shit-tych because it's received a genuinely negative (and fair) response from some anons.

>>20961921
I'd talked to Ogden about contacting him, but apparently K is going incommunicado for a bit. Plus I don't have a Twitter and it looks like he deleted his anyway. And all of K's stuff is attributed to him directly in &amp, isn't it? Which piece on the list has the mix-up?

>>20962519
Ain't a cover, just something I fucked around with on my work computer a while back. But I'll keep that in mind.

>>20962533
What? It's never been in &amp.

>>20962587
my bad. never mind. i think i saw it in an &amp thread before this, though. one of the best &amp... promotionals ever?

I've been trying to think of how to distribute the best-of once it's out. Hosting a copy from the unofficial.drivel Google Drive account would be a start, and I'm sure editor would be willing to post it on the website, but both of those are slightly volatile options. LibGen accepts public uploads but you need "positive votes from the librarian team" after uploading and I don't see any other criteria listed. I saw a PDF of Eggplant is on LibGen, and Ogden even has himself an ISBN, but I think that comes with publishing on Amazon.

>>20962595
>one of the best &amp... promotionals ever?
Thanks, I'll take it. When I first made it I wanted to use an &amp piece for the text but didn't really have any quintessential pieces in mind that would fit it. With the best-of list maybe I'll revisit it for promotions and illustrations with some of the distinct pieces as the template. Maybe I'll spend my fall plastering &amp posters around my little downtown.

>tfw I finally have a chance to get printed in a magazine

>>20962896
>Maybe I'll spend my fall plastering &amp posters around my little downtown.
so much soul. reminds me of that one tumblr user who said she advertised her fanfiction by distributing flyers at the train station at the age of 12.

for the best-of, a MEGA link or something like catbox might be the best option. your posters could have qr codes.

>>20962511
There's a lot of scifi, fantasy, erotica, paranormal/schizology, and horror. Only one other literary realism writer who had a couple collections out. I don't really count because mine is speculative so I border on paranormal when Im not writing short stories.

>>20963276
i see. does/can comedy count as "literary realism?" i've always wanted to write a comic novel, like john kennedy toole, but i've never been funny, and i don't think people even read comic novels anymore.

>>20962587
I dont know what else to read, desukar. Are you waffling over which ones to cut out still? Also yeah I can consider the racing one but I havent been to a race in a while, I think it impacted me enough to imagine something.

>>20963286
I would count it as literary, yeah. Comedy is just elementally a genre at this point so as long as its realistic and you use your style to tell the story, its literary in my book. I would say Ulysses by Joyce but the last chapter of part two has so much hyperbole that you imagine something that isnt real, but Joyce was so damn funny in it compared to his more realistic stuff it's incredible. I've yet to read Confederacy but sure enough there's nothing wrong with having predominantly humor.

>>20963305
i loved ulysses. i plan to reread it many more times.
do you have any contemporary authors you would recommend? humorous or not.

>>20963320
I am mostly studying classics, some nonfiction, anon work, religious texts and a bit of contemporary. I want to read more contemporary, since lit agents only seem to care about that, but Im having trouble identifying more authors, though I guess I read McCarthy, B.E. Ellis, want to read Delilo (sp?) maybe. I did come across Jesmyn Ward who I like, she has a Faulknerian voice. Forcing myself to find a contemporary has been kind of painful. I hope O.Nesmer makes it and I can say it's him.

>>20963353
just before i posted (>>20963320) i was looking at chapter 2 of Nesmer's novel (issue #008) and i was pleasantly surprised: he's a solid writer! i'm looking forward to reading the actual novel. i wonder if he has social media or a blog or whatever.
I have DeLillo's (DFW was a fan, if i remember correctly) McCarthy's work on my ever-expanding-never-shrinking to-read list.
i had begun reading American Psycho, but decided to hold off on it because i want to look at some of BEE's other work before i continue.
>Jesmyn Ward
i haven't heard of her. is there anything you'd recommend of hers in particular?
i recently came across an interview where this author called Mieko Kawakami cites Joyce as an influence. have you heard of her? i've been meaning to read a bunch of late-20th-early-21st-century /lit/, but i have a huge backlog already and it's weighing down on me.
what sort of religious texts and non-fiction do you read? is it a casual thing or do you have a special interest?

I have a gothic, occult detective/conspiracy fiction short story that I'd like to submit, but I don't know if I should wait for the October/Autumn issue. It's pretty timely, however, considering how the death of Queen Victoria and the end of an era plays a major role in the narrative's plot.

>>20963518
I've heard of Kawakami but not read her before. Ward I heard when learning more about Southern lit and she writes contemporary Southern. I read "Salvage the Bones" which is on the grittier side. There are a couple scenes that are sexually explicit, and it has some other unsavory things but I like what she did with it, and managed to make me care about a pitbull which outside of books I despise with all of my being. Nice allusions to the Greeks as well.
I have books about 20th century history (Tragedy and Hope), a science book by Ray Kurzweil, stuff on finance and economics, systematic theology, read the new testament a dozen times, have the Samaritan's scriptures, a textbook on Achaemenid Persia, a Japanese philosopher named Ogyu Sorai, and I'm currently reading the Book of Mormon and I'm shooting myself in the head because Smith is quoting the New Testament constantly in a text he claims was written in 600 BC, making the "mystery of godliness" pointless.

>>20963615
>Salvage the Bones
thanks for the rec. i'll look into this soon.
>Ray Kurzweil
is that the speech-to-text guy?
>because Smith is quoting the New Testament constantly in a text he claims was written in 600 BC
prophetic perfect tense? (lol)

all of what you're studying about sounds very, very interesting. what do you do, if i can ask?
sorry for all the bugging. it's just super intriguing

>>20963583
you should submit whenever, because it seems like the schedule's very malleable right now

>>20963749
Okay, I'll see if I can get it finished by next week.

>>20963749
Kurzweil is a transhumanist, been writing for decades. I dont agree with all his takes but he's knowledgable on the state of the art.
R&D Chemistry, project manager.

>>20956159
>It was too earnest to be really funny, and too juvenile/amateurish in style and content to be genuinely unsettling
>poorly written, unfunny, and uninteresting.
Bros.. it’s over
How many works are roughly going to be in the best-of? There are also pieces in the “mid-tier” section that I like, but I’m unsure how competitive the slots are.

>>20963846
>Bros.. it’s over
no. it isn't. keep writing!

>>20963846
I am a lightweight at criticism too. I almost regret my submissions for next issue, since my first one is turbocringe but I genuinely hope anons like "Face of Carthage." I guess it might read like schizology but I wrote it very seriously.

>>20963846
If it even made it on the list that indicates that at least some anons recommended it, so clearly there’s some sort of merit to your work. Keep at it. It’s not over.

>>20963846
Someone had this to say about one of my pieces in an old thread:
>inchoate, crude, and boring as fuck. has no narrative structure of any kind and goes nowhere. narrator seems like a gross, amoral scumbag with zero redeeming qualities, and the whole thing reads like some dime-a-dozen depressed alcoholic’s pseudo-intellectual navel-gazing
so I guess I know what to work on.

And I don't know about the number at this point--the first concern is still quality. The pieces vary quite a bit in page count, so the number of pages doesn't follow clearly with the number of pieces, especially when you consider how short most of the poetry entries are. V1 of the list had ~100 entries and this whole thing is pulling from 12 literary issues of &amp, so it's probably going to be fairly long.

So &amp and best of &amp is coming next week?

>>20963846
Hey, that was me. I’m sorry if I was too hard on you, anon. Usually I try to be more detailed and constructive in my criticism, but when posting my reviews for the best of I was just trying to quickly sum up my general thoughts on each piece. I didn’t fully consider that the original authors would read what I’d written, so perhaps I came across as unfairly harsh and dismissive.

For “A /lit/ PSA,” I did say that I sort of liked it, and that some parts of it were good. I think that the premise is interesting and has potential. And I’ll give credit where credit is due—the title “Deep Under the Covers” is actually quite clever and funny, and the idea of a comedic story about someone struggling to hide their sexual orientation has potential as well.

But the humour in your pieces didn’t work for me, as it was too on-the-nose. It seemed like you were trying too hard to be funny—the humorous element should be more subtly suggested throughout. This is especially true when writing about dark and emotionally charged topics, such as struggling with self-hatred over one’s hidden sexual orientation, or descending into paranoia and mental illness. It’s possible to write very funny pieces about these sorts of things, but this generally is done through black comedy: finding humour in the darkness and discomfort while still acknowledging its seriousness, and without completely making light of it. Essentially, in order to be meaningfully funny, the work also need to be meaningfully dark and carry some kind of emotional weight. Assuming an overtly jokey or facetious tone tends to make the piece read as one-note and amateurish. It can work sometimes in very brief, less serious formats (ie. shitposts, greentexts) but in a short story or longer prose piece, it virtually always falls flat.

To help you see what I mean, I’d recommend that you read some of David Sedaris’ essays and short stories; he’s an example of someone who writes humorous pieces about serious topics with great success. Other than that, my biggest recommendation would be to work on your syntax. For example, you often use a comma to join clauses that should be two separate sentences, or should be joined with an em-dash or semicolon. Also, you should try to employ parallelism in your sentences, because doing so will greatly improve the flow and readability of your work.

Anyway, it’s definitely not over, and you should keep writing. If you want more detailed feedback you can email me at atlaspherea@gmail.com— if you send me your work as a Google doc, I’ll try to go through it and leave more detailed comments, and point out specific examples of the syntactical errors that I mentioned. It might take me a few weeks to get back to you though, because I’ve got other stuff on my plate right now.

>>20963846
I was harsh too in the googledoc on that story also, but what I found interesting was the situation that the POV character is in.

>>20964502
The real &amp issues are significantly padded with photos and graphic design, so each one probably contains far fewer pages of text than might initially be assumed. So the best-of probably won’t seem all that long if it’s more text focused and doesn’t use other elements to increase its length.

>>20964692
Heck yeah

I realized ChickenPunk isnt a burgerpunk at all and I was getting worked up for nothing. I didnt develop any dystopian elements.
Guess I need to think of a new title.

>>20964692
>>20965390
>best of &amp is coming next week
Probably not. The list isn't finished yet and after that is editing, typesetting, illustration, etc. End of the month is more likely.

>>20965653
Affirmative. I admire your efforts to shepherd the &ampers, especially when we were doomposting.

>>20965668
>the &oomper
>
i sat here for a few minutes typing and backspacing. i'm not funny enough to do this joke. even the concept of an "&oomper" itself isn't funny. it doesn't even make sense.

I'm writing that essay now and it's like fresh, the freshest, y'know...like, uh, def...the deffest. You know...def.

>>20965668
It's on a little bit of wrangling. It wouldn't be going so well if I didn't have all the anons posting lists or commenting on pieces. If it was just my own favourites it'd be a real bore.

>>20967264
what are your boring favourites?

Bump

>>20944017
Well I'm the writing the first story, but I'm not sure anybody cares about philosophizing. I have the WIP up for critique over at /wg/. It's the one about Verum,Jakob and X (don't have a name for him).

I'm not sure anybody would appreciate, or care for it. I have another idea for a story. It's about a man who wants to become an artist (spefically a writer), but who has no 'originality' or 'imagination'. He studies the craft and is recognized by journals sometimes, but is unable to truly surpass the medium. He feels like he doesn't relate to anyone. Too smart for the average people, and too dumb for the gifted people. Feels awkard speaking, and talking about writing. Meets an average girl. Decides to not judge; discovers she's rather 'smart'. By that I mean, creative. She just hasn't developed herself. Man becomes disillusioned and accepts the fact that he's average, but determines to develop his soul so that he won't write vapid material anymore. yada yada yada, happy ending ensues or not. idk yet.

>>20968363
Tread carefully with the story idea because writing about not writing well has been done a lot. Not that it can't be great or anything.

Looks like participation has cooled off in the best-of document, so I might freeze commenting sometime while I re-arrange pieces. So if any of you drop in to comment and don't have privileges, just give it a bit for me to update things. Still open for now, though.

>>20967345
I didn't really compile a rigorous list of favourites for the list. It'd been a while since I'd done a full read of many of the issues, and I was more concerned with getting the "community" response. Wanted to keep my own bias out of it in the early stages and keep the playing field fair. Release threads generally had discussion about favourites, and I'd taken part in those, so I already knew which of the pieces I was into would be appearing that way (Void, Computer Crimes, and Dog Killer, for example).

Anyway, these are the handful that I suggested myself because I didn't see discussion elsewhere:
>The Bog Brother [012]
>Jibaku #1 & #2 [010 & 011]
>An Anonymous Diatribe (Against Laughter) [010]
and I didn't mean to call these boring in themselves, just that it'd be boring if it was only my taste that determined the list. Maybe I'll compile my own list at some point just to say I did, but I'm happy looking through the selections of others for now. There are a lot of good pieces that I hadn't noticed.

any &ampers read anything good lately? interesting to know what people here are into outside of &amp

>>20969029
i've been reading kobo abe's "ark sakura." i like it a lot so far! i'm on chapter 11 now.
i've been procrastinating a lot on reading, so going through &amp and helping best-of anon out a bit has been a way of getting myself out of that pit.

>>20969029
I'm reading Dubliners by Joyce. His short stories are far more mundane and serious than Ulysses was. A lot of the characters have some "literally me" quality to them as well, and honestly kind of astounding that Joyce was capable of such a range of voice between his books. I've also been reading a few Yeats poems a day, as well as a Borges short story a day. I plan on reading Suttree next week.

>>20969029
I've been reading Divorcing by Susan Taubes after an anon made a (short-lived) thread about it. Not far in, but I like it, and the style is interesting. Makes me think of the women I've known.

Before that was the Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood, which was just a short horror novella. Good, and set in the same kind of wilderness that I grew up near (I've been to Rat Portage, now Kenora, a couple times). And before that I read Eggplant by our very own Ogden Nesmer, which I actually really enjoyed; sometimes it was clear it was a first novel, but it made me look forward to reading more from him. Then the Curve of Time by M. Wylie Blanchet, which was another I read because I'm a Canuck and wanted something softer/easier between novels; it's all short stories from her summer boat trips with her kids around Canada's West Coast, and I enjoyed it.

>>20969068
i've been listening to these borges lectures on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSLV7t9DvN8

dubliners was amazing. joyce got it right. i had a bunch of literary epiphanies going through those lovely, strange, intimate short stories of his. great taste, anon!

>>20963286
>>20963305
just gonna jump in and say "yes"

>>archangel asks me why the hell i went back in time, NOT impressed
>"Just dippin my toes!"
>>banned for three months
kek

>>20969068
Portrait of the artist as a young man helps bridge the gap

>>20969029
becketts molloy. so original that some loose resemblances to other books bothers me more. he alludes to every other novel he wrote in a sentence so i might have to read all of them, though i dont ever hear of them surpassing the trilogy.

>>20942587
I am happy this zine is up again.
I hope its not made on totally elitist grounds of litanons living in same yuppie american city or something, and my novel will get published even though my style is not that fancy, not shakespear/pynchon influenced.
I hope to publish my novel in this zine chapter by chapter like i am some Dostoyevski mfker

>>20969501
There are at least two novels that go serialized chapter releases in it already.

>>20969505
which day of month issues come out, when is start of submission taking and when is deadline?
Also is there upper limit on how long single piece can be?

>>20968891
I liked Jibaku as well, but I haven’t seen much discussion on it. Something about it interested me, but I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly. Maybe I’ll give it a reread.

>>20969068
I read Dubliners last year and loved it as well—my favourites were The Dead and A Painful Case. And it’s on the syllabus for a class that I’m taking this year, so I’m looking forward to rereading it soon. I agree that Joyce’s range is astounding— I read A Portrait… around the same time as Dubliners, and was really fascinated by his use of stream-of-consciousness, especially when portraying childhood. The sermon about hell and eternity was also impressive and deeply unsettling. I haven’t read Ulysses yet, but I picked up a nice cloth-bound copy at a secondhand store a while ago, so it’s on my list.

Any favourite poems by Yeats? The Second Coming and Innisfree are two of mine.

>>20969102
Divorcing by Susan Taubes
>Looked this one up, and it sounds interesting. Do you have a link to the thread?

>>20969029
I recently finished Infinite Jest, and I’m a bit torn about it. Parts of it were riveting, but other parts were such a slog. Overall I’d recommend it, especially to those who enjoy DFW’s shorter works. Now I’m reading Pale Fire, which I love so far, both for the poem itself and the additional layer of narrative that acts as a sort of meta-commentary. I have this old paperback copy with a cover illustration that I find weirdly compelling (pic related), and the previous owner left a bunch of interesting notes about the text’s connections to In Search of Lost Time, which is another favourite of mine.

>>20969501
Same, anon. I am hoping to publish the first part of what I hope to be a three to four-part serialized story in the next issue of &amp.

>>20969549
I dont think there's a strict limit but if you submit a chapter and explain your intention to the editor that could probably help. There isn't a set date, it's just when it's ready. When &amp has lots of active submissions then usually once a month. There's been some down periods though.
>>20969598
Ulysses is down right hilarious and uses different forms of narrative almost every chapter, a ridiculous amount of jokes and language often so impenetrable that it becomes funny. I didn't really enjoy or appreciate it fully until about 3/4 way through.
As for Yeats, considering it inspired both Bradbury and Welty, I have to mention "The Song of Wandering Aengus," but one I like more personally was "the Dawn."

>In dreams begin responsibilities.

>>20969658
actually, i think it's "begins responsibility."

>>20969598
I liked IJ, but DFW was much better and consistent with his essays.

I sent lamp.lit two of my schizo ramblings.

What are the odds of me getting published?

>>20970686
I have no clue how many submissions there are right now, but schizo posting has some value to it and you will probably get in next issue if not after. We ought to retain some of that wild Coast to Coast AM feel, even if it gets pushed to a single column in the back.

>>20969029
good question but ill ask the converse: what have &ampers been writing lately, for &amp or otherwise?

>>20969029
I've been trying really hard not to shoot myself in the face lately. Been writing a story in the vein of Diary of a Vampire but the Vampire is a lich

>>20970748
i'll say it in vague terms:
>a man attempts to get his incel friend some pussy
>political riots ensue

>>20970748
I submitted a short story and flash fiction, both speculative, for the upcoming issue. My next submissions are a short story about fried chicken and a review of the novel American Psycho (working on it right now, might hit 4000 words when it's done). I'm writing a paranormal novel that the speculative short stories are based on.

>>20970748
Short stories are oilfield related. Trying not to flood &Amp. Waited a year before submitting second, and then editoranon disappeared. Other than that couple of novels..

>>20970777
checked. looking forward to more of your stuff, oilfield-anon

>>20969068
>>20969106
>>20969598
only thing joyce wrote worth reading were his letters to his wife, top kek

also humanities fags ngmi

>>20970748
im writing some erotic stuff, anyone know if &amp would publish? sorta creepy and voyeuristic in tone

>>20970756
>lich
??

>>20970782
Man, I wish I did more with those digits. I've submitted to other lit mags, but nobody seems interested in the subject. All identity politics, even on the submittal side.

>>20970792
>his letters to his wife, top kek
good joke, but i'm always disturbed by the fact that this is his ultimate legacy among zoomers. letters about his wife's turds.
>also humanities fags ngmi
i wish i was a humanities fag.

>>20970793
NTA; lich is Old English for corpse.

>>20970794
sounds rough.

>>20970794
>all identity politics
lol no wonder anons are arguing over the culture war shit in your story in the bestof google doc

Hello. I tried to submit my philosophy essay to the magazine but whenever I clicked on submit it didn't work.

>>20970813
submit via email, fren

>>20970794
>identity politics
I actually kind of want to write about the tranny club I ran into several times when I was in college a decade ago. Back then they didn't make such a fuss over the politics and it seemed far more personal to them. The issue being the point of it probably is not "heckin valid" anymore and I doubt /lit/ would want to read such a story that isn't a wholesale condemnation, besides there are at least twenty other short stories I'd rather write first.
That one thread I saw poking fun at "Detransition, Baby" makes me think that people actually would find it interesting.

>>20970838
See poems like this?
>>20966138
One lit agent gave me harsh criticism because the antagonist was a minority.

>>20970843
i didn't really see an antagonist in the poem. just a very troubled narrator

>>20970756
are you okay, anon? write how you’ve been feeling if you feel like you want to talk about it

>>20970860
I don't want to complain too much about the plight of white men. I believe people will be interested in what I'm writing (even the oilfield stories).... just need to git gud.

>>20970880
>I don't want to complain
One of the themes I want to explore in my second novel (at some point this year I will wrap up the first) involves a new American culture of giving even less of damn than we have ever given about anything, especially across state lines. I've no idea if it's the right thing to do, but I just have this compulsion to write it and imagine what we'd be like in a culture that refused to be outraged about anything, but instead quietly folded away any seeming outside influence.

>>20970880
oh wait. i thought you meant you wrote the poem.
if you're talking about For They Are The Ones, then i'm surprised the agent said that. i don't know what to say. i'm sorry to hear that.

>>20970865
I channeled it into a pseudo-philosopical take called Temporal Solipsism

>>20970898
Failure and size of poitical institutions makes it hard to work through or reform. Better to withdraw, improve, repeat.

>>20970906
Yeah, I'm oilfield-anon. 1st draft of novel had 67 rejections and non-responce from Ted Kaczynski

>>20970937
>non-responce from Ted Kaczynski
You sent it to him?

>>20970898
my two kuruş: absolutely no good work of fiction was written by someone setting out to write about culture.

>>20970947
It's about terrorism and (loosely) industrialization. Yeah, I sent it to him.

>>20970954
elaborate, please. thanks

>>20970954
That's fair. Second draft is more focused on plot.

>>20970914
i know what those words mean individually. what is that?

>>20970961
And prose. Sorry. Walking dog and phone posting.

>>20970954
True, but it's not the thrust of the narrative so much as it is the setting. What I was mentioning is speculation on my part which makes the city of Atlanta feel more alien that it currently is. The story is mostly about love triangle between a masochist, a psychopath, and a con artist, who is "from Atlanta."
I'm curious which failed novels you are referring to though, so I know what to avoid.

>>20970974
please tell me they're gay

>>20970980
The first two are a girl and a guy respectively. The con artist is supposed to be a woman but because she never has sex with the guy I suppose it's up to interpretation.

>>20970898
>>20970974
Good luck, and don't forget to shill here.

>>20970990
in all seriousness, i'm surprised the masochist is a girl. i thought only either the psychopath or the con-artist would be women, for some reason. misogyny, perhaps.

>>20969029
read The Anubis Gates recently
Besides the time travel and 18th-century sorcerer clowns and adaptation/integration of London urban myth (which were all very entertaining), it had some surprisingly nuanced takes on Egyptian theological morality. You know how, sometimes, you finish a book and it feels like a puzzle piece you didn't even know was missing has been slotted into place in your brain? This was one of those.

>>20971003
Well it's complicated. The masochist is loosely based on a girl I dated and when we were about to get intimate she unleashed all these requests. In short she was into dehumanization, she eventually stopped using words to communicate with me and it scared me so bad we went our separate ways. So the story is me imagining what if it didn't bother me what would that relationship look like and me trying to understand who fucking hurt her to make her that way.

>>20971009
the way you're describing this novel is very intriguing. i'm going to add it to my reading list. thanks for the rec.

>>20971026
sounds frightening. i'm sorry that happened, anon. doesn't seem like it was easy for either of you.
so much of art is about designing human experience, and about delineating and clarifying and carving out the artist's own human experiences. good luck, anon.

>>20970965
pet dog 4 me

>>20970960
imagine if god said, i created the world as an allegory or examplary/cautionary tale for another realer world. i would feel cheated, aesthetically speaking. point making makes for bad art, because the value is ultimately reducable to something outside the work. you have to treat the thing youre making as if everything else is simply the material to make it out of or enjoy it with the help of and not what the thing youre making is Actually about. "and what if the work is internally valuable and makes a point also" to me is "and what if my oven cooked well but also had a metronome." go get a metronome you can use outside the kitchen. heat hinders tuning. that being said, there exist egg timers that tick like metronomes, though they cant tick for more than an hour. "oh but metronomes stop too after a while and you have to turn the little thingy on their side from time to time." you see how badly i made my point by trying to make it artistically? still much better than the art made while trying to make a point.

>>20970974
>I'm curious which failed novels you are referring to though, so I know what to avoid.
nothing in particular
>The story is mostly about love triangle between a masochist, a psychopath, and a con artist, who is "from Atlanta."
sounds good. is the triangle maso>psycho>con?

>>20971076
>sounds good. is the triangle maso>psycho>con?
Exactly. They dominate each other in that order, but from the man's perspective they are both controlling his life: the one manipulates him through honesty, the other through lies.
>>20970996
I plan to serialize a bit so I may submit some to &amp. The good thing is the first draft is done so once I finish my current project I might be able to finish this one before next summer.

>>20971076
very well said. thanks, anon. |
i'm a bit of a dimwit, so i'm still not too sure i understand what you're saying, so i'd like to settle a few issues i have. let me be clear: i'm not trying to debate you, and i'm not someone who seeks to make a point with the stuff i do; i'm just trying to design a certain experience for the reader. i don't believe in forcing an idea or theme, and i don't think fiction born out of "ideas" makes for good fiction. that being said,

>you have to treat the thing youre making as if everything else is simply the material to make it out of or enjoy it with the help of and not what the thing youre making is Actually about.
does this mean objects external to the work should only serve the work, and that the work should not be about these external objects themselves?
doesn't most good fiction have a "point?" DFW was making a "point" about modern American culture too, wasn't he? i like his work — do you?
i think i'm missing/misunderstanding a big part of what you're saying, so i'd be glad if you elaborated further. thanks, anon

>>20970964
https://pastebin.com/YuburgNS

Here's my &Amp submission on the subject. It's pretty much incel cope for having no meaningful relationships in my life

>>20971164
i dont think youre misunderstanding me anon.
>|
cool sign
>doesn't most good fiction have a "point?"
no. and if they do, theyre good despite it, not for it.
>DFW was making a "point" about modern American culture too, wasn't he? i like his work — do you?
never read him for this reason. as a complete aside, i think we attribute many symptoms of the way the world fundementally is to contemporary culture, so i find him naive ideologically too. speaking from his talks of course, but now im really talking out my ass.

>>20968891
when are you gonna freeze the list? i still wanna comment on some stuff

>>20971603
I dunno, mane. Tomorrow maybe. And I'll unfreeze it as soon as I've taken all of the current suggestions into account--it's not going to be permanent.

>>20971628
freeze it permanently so those retards stop seething about the culture war and fuck off back to /pol/

>>20971644
The culture war shit isn't going to impact what does or doesn't make it into the best-of, so I'm not prone to caring at this point. If it derails things I'll do something about it, but otherwise things have been productive and I'm not gonna bother if it's relegated to a single piece.

>>20970937
I liked your story. I hope you keep writing.

>>20969679
I agree, on the whole— his short stories and essays are some of my favourites. But certain sections of IJ are equally good, I think.

>>20970805
>good joke, but i'm always disturbed by the fact that this is his ultimate legacy among zoomers. letters about his wife's turds.

Agreed. Joyce was definitely a weird dude, and his letters to his wife are undeniably funny, but I find it sort of sad to see them relentlessly mocked by people online. He obviously wrote those letters in confidence and didn’t intend for them to be read by the public. And he clearly loved her, and seemed very earnest. It’s sort of touching that he found someone who he could write to so sincerely and unselfconsciously, and who would accept all of his proclivities and perversions. What more can any of us hope for, but to have someone witness our most fucked up desires and choose to embrace us anyway? Maybe I’m taking this shit too seriously though, lol.

>>20971644
>>20971672
I feel bad; my intention when responding to the culture war comment wasn’t to derail anything, but I can see how it comes off that way. I can delete my replies if they’re detracting from the conversation.

>>20971771
>culture war sheit
Nah, don't worry about it. Like I said, it's all relegated to a single piece and hasn't bled elsewhere. I don't care.

>>20971644
did you even read the comments? neither of us were seething. its not like we were arguing politically or even expressed any personal political opinions. we were arguing over how the storys allusions to current day politics affected the quality of the story. i stand by what i said, that those elements-especially that close to the end, and also in the case of the stickers lazily repeated-clashed with what i saw to be the heart of the story, and this should be considered while thinking the piece over. if anything, im seething now.

I just submitted a sonnet. hope editor anon gets it and likes it (it's accompanied by a picture)

I’m thinking of submitting an ad for my personal blog to 015. Is that allowed or would it be seen as tacky self-promo?

>>20948282
Why is the faggot,
telling us what he will do,
and not doing it?

>>20971906
I submitted a sonnet too. I'm unsure if it's too edgy or schizod, but I just wanted express my feelings of complete dread first, and then move on to happier subjects

>>20972029
haiku?

>>20971559
>>|
>cool sign
burst out laughing at this. sorry
>speaking from his talks of course, but now im really talking out my ass.
i suppose his stuff is also good despite it, then?
>no. and if they do, theyre good despite it, not for it
i'm sorry, because my brain is hurting big time over this whole thing, now. could you give me an example of fiction that is weakened for its trying to make a point (again, to make things clear, i'm not trying to debate you. i'm just very dumb)?

>>20971644
no one is seething except you

>>20971771
>Maybe I’m taking this shit too seriously though, lol.
no, you get it. you hit the nail on the head. i see jokes like "if Joyce were alive today he would be the guy who comments 'do that ass fart' under random women's pictures," and that's not true! he was a fairly reserved person! he wouldn't do something like that.
i mean, maybe if he had an anonymous account...
it isn't fair that people put him down for his most private, "shameful" moments. for this reason i refuse to read any letters an author or artist wrote. i don't think that kind of thing should be made publicly available. i know i'm crossing over into oddly-zealous-proponent-of-censorship territory now, but it's a very gross and odd and sad feeling. it's an ugly invasion of privacy.
okay. now maybe I'M taking this too seriously.

>>20972803
I wonder if my reputation would lose control like that but I think one of the best things to do is never go on the defensive. I'm pretty urbane, religious and vanilla in person and pretty much everyone that knows me would say that. But does me having a novel draft about rape, murder and idiosyncratic language make me crazy or somehow not myself anymore? People get this idea that no one can step outside of their comfort zone, and if you do it now defines what you believe, but a writer of all people should be allowed to do that.

>>20972897
1. Pen name.
2. But inside doesn't matter.

>>20971832
That's fair. Will do.

https://pastebin.com/LtKntpKp

I finished the chicken story. Do you rike it? Did I hint at the ending correctly or did it not seem to fit? Was going to submit it for the issue after the upcoming.

>>20973510
A few run on sentences. Grammar could use more punctuation.
>I noticed my car's gas tank was twice the volume necessary
Clunky. Just say half-tank.
Would a Carolinian use Texas Pete?
Weird that you introduce your car on paragraph ten.
Do Latinos pronounce it Bo-Hahn-gles?

>>20973608
He is deliberated avoiding saying half-full or half-empty. Half-a-tank makes sense to stay neutral but it's an engineering way of looking at things, to imagine that the car could be different than it is. Yes I know it sounds clunky.
>Would a Carolinian use Texas Pete?
You see them in restaurants all the time, so yes.

>>20973630
I know the joke, but haven't met an engineer who talks that way.

>>20973642
Sure thing. Already made some edits. Also on the late mention of the car make and model, it's because he's thinking of breakfast and also inside his car. Once he gets out of the car he can see it clearly, at least that was my reasoning for it.

>>20973693
I pulled inside the center turn lane on Main at 7:01 AM

>and

after the oncoming Triple Yellow 2016 Ford Mustang passed I boosted my car right into the Bojangles drive-thru with my driver side window rolling down

>and

glanced at the cup holder that held my money clip

>and

change.

Holy first sentence anon.

>>20973726
Yes.

whats difference between submission by mail vs submission by page?

>>20942587
submitted my schizotexts. hopefully you take previously published works

>>20973865
how? by mail or by page?

>>20973924
by email

>>20972803
>i'm not trying to debate you.
youre socrates-ing me into a dialogue, sly you.
>could you give me an example of fiction that is weakened for its trying to make a point
its hard to give examples cause i go out of my way to not read stuff like that. how then am i so sure of myself? im going more off of what makes stories work, then what makes them not work. every book ive read and found worthy of having read instead of eating it for breakfast ive found worthy because they were beautiful, innefable, original, well crafted, unique despite not being original, interesting, intriguing, engaging, entertaining... all adjectives that denote inherent value.

but you didnt ask me to repeat myself. you asked for an example. so uhh... i guess hemingway is an example. he shoves his nihilism too much in my face onto my nose. im thinking of the repeated lack of desire to live of the character in the killers. not even going to mention a well lit place or soldiers home. im also thinking of the whole of the sun also rises, where i see completely eye to eye with the book worldview wise-i even go around quoting ecclesiastes-but there is no creative drive behind it. its his travel journal. it wasnt written with an artistic spirit. not one idea ive found interesting. repetitive as hell. i can not imagine the author "giddy" while writing it, and i feel like in every good book i read im able to.

>>20974479
>youre socrates-ing me into a dialogue, sly you.
i swear i'm just dumb!
>i guess hemingway is an example. he shoves his nihilism too much in my face onto my nose.
i see. makes sense, i suppose.
okay, here's my final question for you. what are some works you really really like?
thanks for answering this poor old fool, anon.

Did we get lots of submissions for 015?

>>20975379
i hope so.

>>20974607
my favorites are miss lonelyhearts, the time machine and nine stories. what are your favorites and least favorites anon?

threads gonna die so heres a deathbump, RIP bestof thread

press f to pay respects bros

>>20976079
thread's dead so i don't know if you'll see this but some of my favourites right now are ulysses and a confederacy of dunces. both are written in a way that really really resonates with me as a writer and me as a reader.

>>20971628
are you gonna make a new best of thread? or just leave things on hold n chill for a bit?

>>20975379
Inshallah

RIP, bye &ampers