/lit/ - Literature

I am very consciously uneducated. I was great in elementary school but during high school got very lazy. I left my University course before graduating due to personal issues but my thirst for learning was rekindled in quite a big way. I now am very aware of how little I know, and am obsessed with wrapping my head around at least the basics of history, geography, philosophy, mythology and literary theory before I can start writing.

My University course was Creative Writing, which I happened to really hate and thought was a mistake, and what I often saw was people writing stories about things they not only knew nothing about, but weren't that curious about. They'd sooner look consciencious writing a story about prostitution than actually do any research. Not everyone was guilty of this of course, but enough.

Once I've got some ground knowledge going I think I'll start writing again. I really know very little about the world I live in and feel compelled to know more before I ever try and take 20 minutes of someone's time away with a short story of mine.

>>2645913

Humility, in MY /lit/?

Mostly that I'm lazy. I'm incredibly unpracticed. I will say that listening to James Marsters read the Dresden Files is really getting my writing mojo in gear, though, and after fapping and taking a shower, I should try to crank out at least an outline.

Although I will admit not having anyone to hash things out with is also a bit disappointing and unhelpful.

I'd rather write something in nonfiction but I need to find an angle on a subject that interests me.
or
I'd rather work towards something more practical and only afterwards use the experience to illuminate my novel.

>>2645913

i'd say you know plenty already. you aren't writing a manual, you're writing fiction. sure if you set in the world war, or in germany, or your character is a stock broker, you're going to need to have details about this, but you don't need to have fought in the war, lived in germany, or been a stock broker to write about them.

someone said, i forget who, that everyone has enough material to last a lifetime's worth of writing by the time they are 18. sounds true enough.

just do it. you can learn while you write.

>>2645942
You're absolutely right and I'm really starting to learn this. I just went through a funk after University of wondering what such an over privileged kid like me, who's had such an easy ride so far, can give to people in terms of enlightening thoughts and ideas. I'm realising now that, at the very least, I can discuss these thoughts I'm talking about right now, and the idea that I am very unaware of my lack of education, which some people, including naive myself some years ago, don't give a fuck about. I would like to discuss, with fiction, the idea that the most intelligent people don't necessarily know a lot, but accept what they don't know, and actively pursue it.

Just babbling on because I can't be the only person with this sort of crap on their mind right? I get quite anxious about these sorts of things.

I'm not a writer.

I'm not writing a story, I'm writing an account of my month long stint in Mongolia.

The highlight was when a gang of Kazakhs dressed in tracksuits stole my horse and I had to wander aimlessly through the steppes for a couple of hours. It gave me some time to reflect.

I'm really more of a night writer. Harder to write with the Day Ball out, but not impossible.

>>2646011
I didn't follow that. You lack education, having graduated from a university?

>>2646035
My bad, I only read your last post.

>>2646011
Plato said all that already. However, if you wrote it well, I'd read it.

>>2646011
See I'm not familiar with Plato's works so that's quite interesting to me. It is already queued up in my to read list. I can't help but feel like that kind of idea needs a resurgence at any rate, it seems so obvious to me but so many people I met were just okay with frankly and boldly discussing themes they'd never really encountered or read up on. Shit, even some of the lecturers.

>>2646060
>>2646043
Sorry was directing that towards your post.

I don't know OP. I hate myself for it though.

>>2645903
>implying I have any singular story to tell
>implying I'm not merely the universe experiencing itself from a certain perspective and have come to the realisation that all is one and life is one singular narrative that is unapproachable by human intellect in any other way than silently experiencing it without the intervenance of conceptual thought

>>2645903
because i like writing in first person
that simply will not do

It's a arduous and painful to try and write a whole book. Right now, I'm starting my second short story. They're much easier to tackle.

Though I've entertained the idea of becoming a writer, I've only "written" one story to this date, and it was basically a retelling of a half-remembered story I heard in a movie that years later I discovered was originally penned by Oscar Wilde. But that was years ago when I was a stupid, naive teenager who didn't know any better and who didn't know there were classic writers everybody knew about.

Now, well, I have ideas (from entire plots, some scenes or characters and the like) but no clue on how to go about actually writing something down. How to translate those ideas into written form.

I'm not all that creative, and don't really want to write a story.

>>2646095
I once dreamed that Ganesh was this sexy motherfucker (bellow the neck, anyway), but he was a homocidal maniac who liked slashing people in half with his ivory whip.

>>2646133
But how do you contribute to society?

>>2646138
I pay taxes and such things as that. Purchase things, help the economy, etc. etc.

>>2646142
You just implied that you only consume. Are you on the dole?

>>2646138
>2012
>thinking you're obligated to contribute anything to society

Why? Society fucking sucks.

>>2646153
I don't know what that means. "On the dole"?
I have a job and such. I don't create things and put them into the world, though.
So, I would say, yes, I am basically just a consumer.

>>2646153
I was merely asking, comrade. I'm a parasite myself.

>>2646155
On the dole means living on welfare. You are not merely a consumer, you contribute too. What kind of work do you do?

nothings stopping me. write now I'm working on a technothriller for my own enjoyment. don't really think I'll publish it. but once I'm done with that I'm going to start working on my actual novel. feels good man

>>2646169
>nothings
>write now
SON OF BITCH TYPEWRITER

I don't have "write a book" as a personal goal, so I don't even worry about it. But sometimes I write some really short-stories or poems and that is enough to make me smile. I wrote one today.

While I do have the basics of my story fleshed out mostly the way I want, my intent is to make it a series of novels that can stand by themselves or be read in order. The problem is finding a good enough plot hook for the first book that people will want to go on reading the rest.

I typically get about a paragraph done before being distracted and engaging in a free write, like the one pictured. I did this one a long time ago.

I am! When I'm not, its due to massive distraction, exams and the like.

Nothing.

I'm working on my novel and right this second a short story I'm submitting to a prize at the end of the month.

>>2646287
Damn, at first, I was like, hey, you must have some talent, but then, the second paragraph made me think, he must be trolling, then, it was most comparable to reality, besides the messed up references.

Finish your fucking work or else.

I'm a novice. I've never written a book, but I'm interested in doing so.
My problem is that I start working on what I want to write about. I roughly work out the world, the characters, the plot, but by the time I should begin writing I've already fallen in love with the story and end up not writing it at all because I feel I wouldn't do it justice.
It all goes to my backlog of "things I'll write once I'm good", see.

>>2646328

Oh don't worry about my political views, they really aren't expressed in that one. When I write about politics, I practice taking particular sides, switching between pieces. This is a really bad one I wrote. It's rather dull and pointless, but that was my mood at the time.

I just finished a story and am starting a new one. My work is expressly written for money however, so I couldn't tell you specifics. I can tell you that my influences are mostly drawn from early 20th cent. weird fiction authors, notably Clark Ashton Smith, HP Lovecraft, and William Hope Hodgson.

To those who write; Write on, sirs, write on. You will never -get good- unless you -keep writing-.

>>2645903
Whoever said I wasn't writing that story?

I've written that story plenty of times. Nobody wants to buy it anymore.

Because right now I have to go and investigate why my car is overheating. Probably need to drop the radiator and then flush the whole engine out, pain the ass really. But it's okay because I like working on cars.

The really scary though is that the radiator might not be blocked and I'll have to spend time diagnosing the real problem.

>>2646355
I suffered from that quite a bit, but fear not because I have a solution.

I'm not gunna lie, that "I'll write it when I feel I can do it justice" story of mine is a huge epic fantasy (which is not what I usually write) that just kept getting out of hand. Characters were changing, the plot was changing, motivations were changing, conflicts were changing, everything was changing in the middle of trying to write it. Every new idea I had screamed to be incorporated at the expense of making lots of changes elsewhere.

It's happened a few times but the way I get by is by doing this: whenever I feel like I can't do something justice, I take my favourite elements and put them in that big ol' fantasy tale. Once there they can improve (or make a clusterfuck of) that story, but they aren't my immediate problem. They'll be recycled and I'll get a chance to do them proper justice later and right now I can get back to my current story.

TL;DR
>Take all the ideas you think you can't write well and put them into a single 'I'll write it one day" story and once they're there you can write them however you want in the current story.

read at day, write at night

and a little bit of vice versa

>>2645903
The past, fucking guilt, possible post traumatic syndrome, what you would call a life wreck, I was wishing for a thread like this one way, so that I would at least post the actual reason, it's the truth, but without the details.

Also, I will spare you the details.

I will only say one thing, besides a story/novel,
I want to create a comic book story, and I'm thinking of using kickstarter.com because I need economical support and to dedicate heavily but I need the proper tools / I'm a little limited because of my location and past happenings, any advice?

You might be helping one of the next biggest piece of literature, or the most underrated one in a future, but it will be a worthy piece of all of my research, making my life, a worthy one besides all of my mishaps.

So, people, here you have one chance to pitch in to something pretty good and it involves humanity itself and the mistakes that have made living seem like kindergarden play next to survival.

The fact I suck at writing is stopping me.

>>2646742
Oh, or subsistence, you decide.

My wife won't turn off that goddamn shitty bitch music

>read at day,

> at day,

Try not writing at any time, because you're fucking illiterate.

>>2646753
You silly whippersnapper, I make the two posts before you and nothing is stopping me. What is it about not knowing how to write that stops you, do you lack imagination? If you don't, get somebody to write for you the happenings of your story, not all of us have the talent, but somebody can transport your feelings or what happens to your characters from your fantasy or fiction facts to written sentiments.

Don't you get it? You might be what humanity is needing and you're not putting it down because you lack advice.

>>2646754

Then don't bother her while she's working at the tittybar.

I mean as a barmaid, ofc. Your imaginary wife is far too ugly to be a stripper

>>2646755

try not writing at any time, because you're a fucking prescriptivist. stop pretending language isn't fluid.

>>2646766

Keep pretending your errors are some kind of stylistic decision, you fucking cunt. That way you can guarantee you never learn anything new, and you'll die as useless as you were when you slithered out of your mother's diseased cunt.

Hey, you've gotta have goals, eh?

>>2646807
I agree with the last part, you need goals or else.

>>2646287

You think that was bad writing?

Dude, where the fuck did you figure or who told you or why did you feel that?

I find it truly brilliant writing for it being so short, so descriptive and crystal clear, I have no idea what you are talking about.

You should invest your time in writing more concepts instead of releasing them here.

When I write something i never look at it again, so most of what I write is journal entries.

I got a story in my head but I know fuck all where to start. I don't want to even start writing until I know what I'm writing about. Plus I'm obsessive about having a stable platform to write in, finding that platform has proven difficult.

1.) Because I'm utterly at a loss for ideas
2.) Because whenever I start, I'll get ~50 pages in. Then, I'll be reading some beautiful literature, and become completely ashamed at my feeble attempts to match it. I'll delete what I wrote, and regret it immediately.

>>2646766
You're using the goddamn word wrong.
See, it's prescriptivist if somebody says I should have said "wrongly" right there, or "incorrectly". What I said was a common usage of the word that everybody understands.
If I said "You're using word the goddamn wrong", and somebody corrects me, that's not prescriptivism. That's correcting a basic fucking grammar error.

>>2645903
I'm lazy.
I have a lot in my mind, but have no idea how to bring it, is there some tuturial how I can make things easy to read?

>>2647446

fair enough.

Severe OCD