/lit/ - Literature

1000 words isn't much. That's like a page, right? On Word, it's a page or so.

King writes as a professional, so that's his workload for a day. I don't need to write for money, so it doesn't apply.

>haven't written a story in 4 years
>shoot me

lizard

stephen king is also wrong

though you should write every day

>>5173636

>write every day

I write on 4chan every day. Does that count?

>>5173565
>1000 words
lmao that king would think this considering his quality control problem

if you produce 200 quality words a day you can write a novel a year which is already an INCREDIBLY fast rate for someone who writes anything not at grocery stores

>>5173643
It's mostly unintelligible gibberish in form of few sentences which may, or, as in most cases in this board, may not be a furthering of a discussion; and not even a start of one.

>>5173565

I think king specfically says that you should read and write, combined, for 6 hours a day.

A thousand words isnt that much, I can write that in about an hour. I think i read that king writes around 5000 words a day, plus doing a lot of editing.

As for what you should write, depends on what you're comfortable with, and what your goals are. If you want to write 50 books in your lifetime, like king, then yeah I'd say 5000 words a day is a good idea. It could be argued that King stresses quantity over quality in a lot of cases, though.

>>5173565
You shouldn't write if you have nothing to say. Babbling pointlessly isn't "honing your skills", it's just wasting your forces and degrading your purity.
Think a long time about what you want to say, then write it until it's finished, then just go live your life.

>>5173650

>quality control
>King Edition
>"Is the name STEPHEN KING on it?"
>"Yes."
>Quality control passed, this shit will sell millions

Around two poems per day.

>>5173674
post some

>>5173674
That's nice, I can't make more than one (but I reject twenty lines to keep just one line).
And what if your poems aren't good? Can you write something that's not good?
If I know it's bad, I don't put it on the paper (no point in that). We can't be good everyday.

>>5173671
I tend to agree with that. Write when you got something to write, dont bother forcing it, because it wont work.

The other school of thought, that King subscribes to, is you should constantly be writing.

I say just go with whatever works for you. I know some people who can only produce good material when they're constantly writing.

>>5173676
inb4 he actually does

>>5173671
>durr muse

King writes 10 pages a day

Mein nigger

>>5173780

>I wrote ten pages in 4 years
>kill me

>>5173784

What the fuck man, in 4 years? The fuck were you doing?

>>5173786

Full time work.

I get home, I work some more. I use the few hours I have left to eat, shower, and play some vidya, then I go to bed and read a few pages before I fall asleep.

I also have little confidence. Writing seems like autistic self-indulgement. I just see horrible writers out there and become scared I'm like them.

>>5173784
were they good pages, at least?

>>5173790
If all you can produce is 10 pages in 4 years, then yeah, you probably are just like them.

>>5173780
Yeah, ten pages of schlock.

>>5173791

I think so. Back then, I went to a story I hadn't finished and finished it.

Probably the best I wrote.

>>5173795

I can produce 12 pages a day. When I'm enjoying myself and what I'm doing, that's my cruise speed.

Here's my noob take on King:

>awesome short stories, especially his early ones
>based non-supernatural material: The Body, The Last Rung on the Ladder

>so so novels (I read Carrie only and thought little of it; not bad but didn't thrill me)

>based nonfiction

I do about that whenever I sit at my typewriter just writing my journal. More if I want to write something

I cant focus or enjoy myself on a computer.

Speaking of that, I should get off of the computer.

>>5173630
1000 words is like 2.5 pages on word, size 11 calibri

>>5173790

nigger I work a full-time job as a baker during graveyard hours, go to school during the day (sacrificing precious sleep to do so), and lift, shower, and eat.

I finished my first novel just a few months ago and I've got an agent to rep it already; it was done over the course of a year.

N O E X C U S E S
O

E
X
C
U
S
E
S

>>5173812

It wasn't an excuse, I was just answering the question of what I had been doing all this time.

I'm on holidays now and still don't write.

I'm happy for you, though. How did you go about finding an agent? I'm interested.

>seeing it happen to others can encourage me

>>5173812

What's your novel about and what is it called?

I keep reading about anons from lit who get published but they never tell us what their books are.

>Whats your minimal daily writing requirement?

300 posts on /lit/

>>5173841
keked quietly to myself

>>5173839

Get writing, bro.

http://www.agentquery.com/

>>5173839

I made a tumblr for it for the sake of self-advertising a few months ago; I never post anything on there, but I may revive it for the same sake once the book is published.

http://ignem-et-sulphur.tumblr.com/Perdition

>captcha: lihoesn tremendous

>inb4 >>>>genre fantasy

>>5173812
You being an overachiever is my excuse.

>>5173885

>agentquery

>been in my favs for years

>occasionally recommended it to anons here

>probably recommended it to you

>you're getting published

>mfw

I'll check your tumblr. Back to you with more questions, stay tuned.

>>5173885
>genre fantasy

>>5173885
>http://ignem-et-sulphur.tumblr.com/Perdition

>is a high-speed rap of a novel centric around the happenings of a different universe on the continent of

>centric around

Centered around?

>>5173902

i didn't write the description

didn't even really read over it

could say nigger dick somewhere in it

>>5173904

>I have ghostwriter in my basement
>I fuck him in the ass every now and then and he writes me a novel for food
>I didn't proofread his work
>"dickbutt" everywhere

>>5173899

>dubs

Nice.

>>5173895

I-it's not like I like succeeding! B-baka!

>>5173896

I actually came across it reading from an article about a novelist who was sharing his information with others in the process.

We're all gonna make it.

>>5173909

kek'd heartily

>>5173912

I'm writing a book of short stories. I know nobody wants to buy that (meaning agencies). Sad face.

>>5173918

Go with publishers that are low-brow and willing to do anything for a dollar, like the dirty crackwhores they are.

From there, self-advertise the shit out of it; you'll get somewhere.

When all else fails, there's Amazon publishing, if you're okay with a bit less profit.

>>5173925

Not in it for the profit until it means money I can live on.

I should take your words to heart because the main reason I stopped writing (not out of a decision though) was because I got disheartened by the idea that all this work was for nothing.

>>5173938

>>5173938

Pic related.

>>5173668
if you want to act like you're clever you probably shouldn't misuse semicolons

>>5173956

It's how I used to think. "Write good stories, the rest will unfold by itself."

Now I just feel like I have great gifts for nobody.

Thanks for posting that, though.

>>5173959

>going all the way
>not writing for decades at a time

I can roll that way.

>must admit I've only read one book by Buko, his first, and adored it

>>5173956
naw tho

i hate all these things. you can produce great fiction even if you are only writing for the most petty reasons. great books have been written to get back at ex-wives. you don't have to be mr. noble writing to give to the world, you can be writing just to jerk yourself off and/or get bjs from hot chicks. the only rule for writing good work is to write good work

>>5173990

Not him, but... your stuff will be generally better if you're doing it for the right reasons. If you have no love for literature and stories and language, chances are you won't produce anything any good.

>>5174007
Dostoevsky wrote for money
> If you have no love for literature and stories and language
Literature is just a medium though which author expresses whatever he wants. It's like saying 'you can't make good carpentry if you don't love the hammer'

>>5174007
>love for literature and stories and language

The common mistake is to imagine we have to make a choice between that and seeking profit. That's wrong. A lot of writers were motivated by greed, envy, thirst for glory or plain neurosis, but they expressed those through writing because they felt a connection to language. Your art can be just a preferred way to make it to the top, there's nothing sinful in that.

I like how those moralizing comics >>5173956 are made from John Green quotes, while guys like Rimbaud clearly wanted fame (at leat at first).

>>5174007
>your stuff will be generally better if you're doing it for the right reasons
maybe maybe not. i don't think so. i don't think if an author who was writing great fiction for shitty reasons decided to write to give gifts to the world his fiction would get better. in fact it might get a lot worse

>>5174018

Actually, what Dosto wrote for money SUCKS, like The Idiot. He wrote it bit by bit and it was getting published right away. It went nowhere and sucked.

You can write for money and still mean it. My point was that Dosto was interested in what he wrote about.

Bad analogy is bad. But I get the idea and don't disagree.

>>5174025

>The common mistake is to imagine we have to make a choice between that and seeking profit

I agree. I wasn't saying otherwise, just saying that if making money is the only thing you really want from writing, then not only are you stupid (you in general, not you you) but you're unlikely to make it.

The only thing Rimbaud wanted were dicks in his ass.

>>5174028

>good/worse

I've often opened threads here where I ask people to show me good writing and bad writing.

Try it some time. It's hilarious. Nobody can tell me what this shit is. There's only writing you like and writing you don't like.

Truly bad writing doesn't ever get published.

i'm really in a slump right now while i look for work but i usually knock out a book every six months. it really sucks right now for time. I try to knock out a page a day, bare minimum.

>>5174090

Any published material?

>>5173668
bekekkekkek kekkekkek kekkekkek

>>5174035
>king money is the only thing you really want from writing, then not only are you stupid (you in general, not you you) but you're unlikely to make it.

That's true, but mostly because people do things for money much less than we imagine. For many people money is a necessity, for those who enjoy a bit of comfort it is a also a commodity, but overall people who seek money for the sake of money are minoritary (even among success-seeking overachievers). For most writers wanting to be successful is some form of powertrip/self-confirmation trial through language. The money is only a side effect of this.

>The only thing Rimbaud wanted were dicks in his ass.

It seems that early in his teens he dreamt himself as successful and rich, and that he imagined that his son (if he were to have one) would become an engineer and rise to the top that way. The opportunist in Rimbaud shouldn't be neglected, the man simply happened to have a much broader definition of opportnity than most people.

Of course dicks in his ass *were* a prime motivator.
>>5174042
>Truly bad writing doesn't ever get published.

That's what self-publishing is for.

>>5174106
no. i'm editing right now.after writing the whole epic, (it took me 9 years, 11 months and a week to do it) i'm going back to start to bring up the quality of the others because OMG they sucked royal ass. i wrote them in the order of 2,3,4,6,7,8,9,1,5,10,11 so 2 sucks ass and 111 rules majorly. fortunately, 1 is good to go because it was written later. working with a full canvas this size allows me to put hints and clues and foreshadowing three or four books ahead so the reader gets a fucking tiger uppercut when they least expect it. and there's a song in the first book sung by a hologram and oh, look at that, the lyrics are the main points of the story with the final scene laced inside of it. SHORYUKEN!

>>5174128

Damn... Impressive.

I did foreshadowing with a short story, where the beginning announces the end via a description. That feel when nobody will ever notice.

>>5174147
thanks for the encouragement. its the whole sci-fantasy, military intergalactic civil war, joseph campbell, trip, but i took the heroes journey and elongated it so that the lifespan of the hero isn't long enough to vanquish evil for good and the children must emerge from their parents shadows to fight not only each other but the final evil itself. we'll see if it flies or not. i wont know unless i try. ive got a midlevel position job interview with FEDEX tomorrow. if i can land that and improve my hours i'll start knocking out this Wheel of Time sized sci fi megaepic i want to finish. should take me about fifteen years to get it all down plus editing. trying to get the first epic squared away to sell so the money can support me instead of fucking fedex. that way i can kill the megaepic in like 8 years. i'm going to make robert jordan look like a short story writer.. pic related... its the notes for the megaepic. each star is a major plot point for one of the books. again. keep writing man, what else are you going to do with your life?

>>5174194
I love reading about your writing anon, keep up the good work!

>>5174213
pick a random number between 1-10,000. will deliver pics of another project

>>5174147
>That feel when nobody will ever notice.
I always feel that way when I write. I love little things connecting and small things happening that parallel the future or the past. I always feel like this is all wasted and I'd have to point it out for anyone to notice.

I'm sure in reality I'm not nearly subtle enough for that to be the case and it's all blatantly obvious for any intelligent reader. But I always feel like my attention to detail is pointless.

>>5174224
1.

>>5174224
last 4 digits of this post number

>>5174194
Makes me wonder (I'm going to preface by saying I love SF and fantasy and am in no way knocking it), popular opinion on /lit/ says SF and fantasy is for teenagers or manchildren. Does that also apply to people who've written SF and fantasy?

>>5174224
127

>>5174241
>Does that also apply to people who've written SF and fantasy?

Yeah, I'd say so. I think the golden age of respectable sci fi and fantasy is way over. Game of thrones sucks, but it's popular so everyone thinks sci-fi and fantasy is back.

I'd have to read the work of the obsessive compulsive on here, but if i had to bet I'd say it's L. Ron Hubbard style retarded bullshit.

>>5174227
>I'm sure in reality I'm not nearly subtle enough for that to be the case

It's not a matter of subtelty, more a matter of drawing passionate reading. An intelligent fan (yes they exist) will analyze the fuck out of your book, and not only he will pick up thing that you thought were impossible to see, he'll make connections that you didn't think of and that would amaze you. All you need is 10,000 fans. Out of them you'll have 100 overreaders who will produce the equivalent of three Phd thesis on your work.

>>5174241
im a kid at heart, i'll admit it. cover on left was the concept, image on right is my adaptation (and i dont have the rights to the manga looking one. note other book titles in background same as ones listed above

>>5174257
NO L ron hubbard here! think about it, you'd have to base it on what we were raised on: star wars movies 4,5, and 6, star trek TNG, final fantasy 7 the matrix, halo, kind of a western version of FF with a heroes journey arc on it. i'll create the religion when i'm older. got my notes right here.

>>5174259
A kid at heart is a great thing to be in this day and age. So long as you can be honest about it, have a touch of self humility, and most importantly so long as you enjoy it.

>>5174258
I just joined this thread so don't mistake me for the anon you replied to or the one posting his work, in case I sound like an idiot. But talking of fans has made me think of one thing that's always been an odd little fantasy of mine. And that's fanart.

I have my doubts about whether anyone but me will ever read what I'm writing, but the idea of somebody interpreting my imagination and out of passion creating a visual representation of it is extremely attractive. Maybe it's just because I can't draw for shit.

>>5174309
Fanart are part of fan rereading I guess. It's something you can avoid if doing fantasy, so better embrace it.
Although fanart is not limited to fantasy (Gustave Doré's engravings on the Comedy can be considred fanart).

>>5174309
>cute girls will never cosplay your characters

Some old writer said you shouldn't consider yourself a writer unless you write 4 pages a day, but I think he meant longhand (not typed).

Still, you should write as much as possible, as often as possible. If you think you're just going to sit down when the time comes and write an amazing story, you're delusional. Writing is an art, but like any art there's craft to it, and you need to improve your craft constantly. Otherwise you won't be worth paying attention to, I don't care how compelling your concepts are

>>5174321
but they will for mine.... during the past so many years i've also been compiling a visual compendium. who wants pics? heres a pic from the book

>>5174338
i admit my earlier work is shit... thats why it took years to get decent.

>>5174241
Whenever people say fantasy is for fat ugly neckbeards I just post Joe Abercrombie.

The golden age of fantasy is dead, sure, but here we have a well dressed, sexy, modern fantasy writer. Check and mate.

I haven't read anything in over a month. I'm starting to get worried.

>>5174347
Forgot pic.

I'll write nothing for a month and then explode with 25k in a night.

>>5174355
I'll write nothing for 28 years then explode and write and entire novel in a week.
It'll happen... one day...

>>5174355
stay at it dude.

Who the fuck would ever listen to King, a man who pumps out shitty genre fiction at a pace of like 8 thousand-page novels a year?

>>5174355
25k in a night?

Man, thats got to suck. I think you'd drive yourself crazy writing that much in such a short amount of time.

I'm usually only good for 1-2000 words and i'm mentally drained for the rest of the day.

>>5174347
and he still writes fat ugly larp-tier fantasy

>>5174373
the same guy who jumps into the middle of an already existing conversation in a thread and babbles like an autist whose been severed from his collection of pictures depicting terminally ill children in suggestive poses. now STFU or go back to /mlp/

>>5174373
Well, you can criticize some of his work, but the dude published 50 fucking novels, so he obviously knows something about writing.

>>5174397
nigga u mad as hell

>>5174405
nono, i was just being cheeky.

>>5173885
>Alexander has confessed on multiple occasions to having discovered his talent for writing in the fantasy genre while playing the MMORPG “World of Warcraft”.

welp, looks like i have no excuses

can you post a section of the book? i want to expose myself to the first works of others to better encourage my own development

>>5174414
fite me irl u cheeky cunt

>>5174421
gobble my taint until you get cancer, neckbeard.

>>5174421
i'm sorry, that was too harsh. i think ive been spending too much time on /b/. i just called myself a nigger.

>>5174352
>sexy
he's barely a 5/10

>>5174462
That makes him still 10 points better than you.

>>5174462
i ususally dont care for selfies (because they're normally used by narcissistic teenage girls) but i'm pretty sure i can beat a "5" for writers. this is what i'm wearing to the interview for muh day jawbs

>>5174552

>>5174552
No, anon. No.

>>5174552
ed miliband?

>>5174552

>write 2000 words
>look at them
>its all shit
>delete the file and cry myself into sleep

>>5174552
What do you expect us to say? "Yes, anon, you're a solid 7/10" or something?

>>5174578
Reporting.

>>5174552
why would you post this

>>5174552
fuck off milliband, go fuck your brother

>>5174587
could be worse....

>>5174613
I'd sooner fuck Asimov than anon.
I'd take a cool looking accomplished old dude with his own style over "I'm unemployed but check out how sexy I am" any day.

>1000 words

sheeit, i make that shitposting.

>>5173812
Only an american would be proud of self-destructing like this.

>>5174552

>>5174619

just curious do you have a job yourself

>>5174644
Yes, I do. I'm a 'Business Applications Programmer', it's work I love and gives me a good amount of free time/pay for reading/writing.

>>5174619
BTW, not unemployed, just getting a better job, fucknuts. there's nothing sexy about it. its a suit. plain jane is what it needs to be. its hard to sell a bachelors degree when the city you're in has a 40% college undergraduate degree rate. 9-5 is bullshit but it pays the bills while keep writing, which is the only thing i want to do. it's cool, make cracks at the "monkey in a suit" all you like, i ain't mad. call jimmy russels, he doesn't know me.

>>5174690
people were laughing at you thinking you are handsome

>>5174613
could be alot worse

>>5174690
Dude calm down.
You posted a selfie of yourself on fucking 4chan claiming you were handsome and expecting people to not laugh at you?

>>5174552
why would you even post this

>>5174700
no, i said i could beat a "5". 5.1? now were talking.

>>5174695
boom. mods in for save. thanks, guy. all suits aside, what about the work?

>>5174627
so what now? kindle? traditional? theres jerks out there making mints because they have an entire series ready for ebooks.

>>5174418

Will post when home mate

>>5174739
I tend to publish my shitposts on the literature board of 4chan.org

>>5173959

I wonder what would happen if he saw the ending of Season 1...

I write 2,000 words minimum everyday. I juggle projects, so I have many projects - but they are unfinished. I can write about 2,000 words in a good hour. I could spare about 2-3 hours, if I set aside vidya games and watching movies. I am aiming to write my million bad words. (I know its a theory, but I figure if I write enough projects totalin a million words, I should be better than a million words before.)

>>5174194

Impressive.

>>5174227

I did 8 years at uni and the way I used to write was always with this analytic mind at work, imagining people analysing my own writing, etc. So my stuff is great stuff for people who like to dig, and I ensured it was just as enjoyable if you missed out on all that.

Not sure I'd write that way nowadays. Pretty sure a good part of the stuff academics "find" they actually create by association.

>>5174373

Read The Last Rung on the Ladder, report back later.

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~rebeccal/lit/238f11/pdfs/LastRung_King.pdf

>>5173684
I do.

O Natura, che il sole a mo' di pomo
colto, potente prendi,
le mani sante stendi
questo reietto e afflitto pover uomo,
che non sa più lui como
poter ricever la grazia divina.
O eterea candela,
che il mondo allumi in grazia sopraffina,
il mio amore, ch'a te soltanto drizza,
grande cavallerizza,
dalla scarlatta crina,
odimi il cor, che a te soltanto anela.

In te non son ch'un sasso ai piè del monte,
m'anzi polvere in terra
che qual cical sotterra
colle forze che son inferme e pronte.
Le chiar distese conte
del mar, ch'ognuno infine avrà sul collo,
stendono ondosa trama
sulla cervice fratta dell'ammollo.
E il disperso, pur vide tutto il mondo,
verrà portato al fondo,
senza il cruccio d'un crollo,
ché va, contento, ver la casa ch'ama.

>>5174695

He could look like anything, his Ender and Speaker are based novels.

>>5175769

You should READ a million good words, dumbass. You improve your writing by READING.

If you suck at something, sucking a million times at it will ony reinforce your suckage.

A person's craft is improved through self-analysis.

>>5175769
You have to think about what you write.

>>5176639
You have to think about what you read.

Casually doing either will cause you to stagnate in your desire to improve.

1000 words is nothing if you are a professional writer. You can easily do that in one hour. Most people work 8+ hours a day. Stephen king is a lazy piece of shit if he boasts about 1000 words a day.

Figures, he is such a shitty writer.

>>5173565
Fuck writing, I barely even read anymore. I went over 4 pages of The Pale King and then did something else.

>>5176930
das it mane

>>5173671
>Not having more inspired things to write about than you have time to write.

When I imposed strict writing minimums on myself, I always had multiple things to write about. It wasn't hard. I intentionally gave myself a few different projects at any one time that I deemed important to work on, and from there I just kept plugging away each done on whichever I felt most inspired to work on that day. Yeah, it's a waste to write gibberish for an hour a day, but it's not hard to find worthwhile things to write, especially if you discipline yourself. The discipline of writing minimums is very conducive for writing, because it forces you to find justifiable things to write about.

>>5173565
I don't have a preset word count. I follow the policy: "If you have to force a fart, it's probably shit."

i read daily, and save writing for my 3-day weekends

>>5173671
>>5173683

That attitude of just letting it come to you is all well and good if you're a hobbyist, or if you just happen to be inspired often enough to maintain a professional schedule. Or if you are on a schedule, and need some downtime to recharge and let it brew for a bit.
But if you want to actually write, you have to sit down and fucking do it, just like any other skill. And if you really are a writer, why the fuck would you ever have nothing to write about?

Honestly, if you can go through a whole fucking day and absolutely nothing caught your interest, you had not one emotion, not one flicker of a thought crossed your mind that you could put on paper, then maybe you should look into data entry or something instead.
If you honestly have nothing to write, then why are you speaking? Why are you thinking? Why are you listening, reading, typing? 'I don't have anything to write about.' What a crock.

>>5173671

lol

procrastination defense force

>>5173780
>Tfw I have 1 and 1 half pages due in three weeks
>Tfw I haven't even started

>>5173780
Which explains why all of his recent stuff has been garbage.

>>5174549
heh

>>5173565
>taking advice from steve "quantity over quality" king
>ever

>>5177482
If you'd read On Writing, you'd know he doesn't pretend to being great. He's actually a great giver of advice in that regard, in that he understands the limits of his advice. He's just offering up the method that he used to improve himself from garbage to a popular writer, and which, from his experience, he believes the method best.

>>5177506
He's also a highly compulsive guy, and that shows in his writing style. 10 pages a day is just insane for about any writer, but he's kind of a write-o-holic, and it works for him at least.

I probably wouldn't recommend his method, but you can at least listen to his advice about it and consider what he's saying.

>>5177506
If you want to be great you'd do well to ignore him altogether, you don't turn to Bob Ross if you want to be the next Rembrandt either.

>>5177081
Well if you didn't have anything to write about, then why did you accept an assignment with a deadline? That type of thinking is only going to lead you to mediocrity. Not that that's a bad thing, there's a lot of highly paid and successful mediocre writers, but you have to understand what you're getting yourself into.

I go by the method of thinking first, and writing second. A lot of writers say they can only think about writing when they're in the act of doing it. If it works for them, whatever, but I do most of my work in my head long before I actually write it down.

>>5176628
Of course it's in fucking Latin.

>>5173790
>"Writing just seems like autistic self-indulgence!"
>reads

>>5173671
>degrading your purity
Yes, I only consume my literature in the form of the finest brownish-white powder.

>>5177582
>italian
>latin

not sure if mongoloid or ruse specialist

>>5173565
I used to do the 1000 word thing; seems to be a pretty common, bog-standard figure that most writers give out in lieu of advice. Thing is I found you end up building the structure of the novel around these short bursts.

Now I do nothing some days and 3500 other days. I think if you are writing something directly autobiographical it tends to be a lot easier and zooms along.

But I edit a lot and junk as much as 80% of my material in some cases, in short stories that is.

I think it's basically more about the hours you put in than the wordcount. But then I am disgustingly slow at editing.

Anywayyy ...

Actually how long do y'all spend on editing?

>>5177582
>Latin
Nigger what are you doing

>>5177676
>Actually how long do y'all spend on editing?
Probably twice as long as I spend writing.

>>5173565
He actually does over 2000. Get gud

>>5177676

Too fucking long.

I hear that you shouldn't even bother editing until you have finished the entire work.

But it's really hard for me to resist that urge.

Any way to get good at writing without wasting half a day every day practicing for years?

I want to get a novel done this year.

>>5173565
Holy shit 1000 words a day? Is he some kind of writing machine that eats and breathes words?
I mean, I have a 200 word essay due tomorrow and I haven't even started yet. Dreading it.

>>5178226
Brékkek Kékkek Kékkek Kékkek!

cool thread. Anyone had success in maintaining a writing routine? It took me a few months to get my word count down daily.

>>5174321
>Cute girls will never read your books

>>5177949
no

>>5177797
>I hear that you shouldn't even bother editing until you have finished the entire work.

You really shouldn't, it's just a time sink. There'll be plenty of time to tear your hair out editing it once it's all down, and by then you'll have it in enough shape that you actually know what to do with it as a whole work, rather than isolated chunks.
Just write your first draft with the idea that every single solitary word will be changed by the time you finish editing. There are no mistakes, you're allowed to be shit at the moment, no one will see this draft but you so just keep moving forward.
Don't write the way you read, putting one completely polished word after another until you reach the end. You can't see your general mistakes that way. You can't tell if you're veering off target because you can't see clearly enough where you're going - you're trying to pave the road and drive the road at the same time and you don't even have a map.
It's like taking a picture of yourself every day for a year and expecting the first and last to look exactly the same, because you can't see the changes as they happen. So all that pre-emptive editing is essentially wasted when you have to go back and do it all over again to give the work some consistency.
It's just like art; focusing on one detail and drawing a fucking perfect eye before getting to the rest of the face is a rookie mistake. You need to lay out a rough as guts foundation for the whole portrait and then gradually add gradual detail to the lot of it, otherwise none of the features will actually relate to each other. If you isolate them individually, they might look pretty enough, but when you absorb it as a whole it'll just be a big old mess.

Sorry for all the similes. I edited this post as I went and was too focused on isolated paragraphs to notice the pile up, and now that I'm finally done I'm too exhausted an attached to it all to change any of it.

>>5173565
Word requirements are for chumps. Just set a reasonable deadline (if you were "professional" you'd have one anyway) and work towards that.

Forcing creativity is again, for chumps.

>>5179664
>Forcing creativity is ... for chumps.
I disagree. Waiting for creativity to strike is a classic mistake. You have to work regardless of whether you feel creative or not. You might end up throwing away your whole day's work, or you might stumble upon your next big idea or inspiration.

One's capacity to be creative is dependent on one's capacity to actually create. If you consider yourself creative, but never actually create anything, then you're by definition uncreative.

I think you should create as much as possible, even if you have to force yourself. The best way I've found to get around writer's block is just to keep writing and be willing to just throw it all away if it's shit. Writer's block comes out of the unwillingness to let oneself write something imperfect, not out of a lack of creativity, so the best thing is just to keep going until you figure it out, and then cut out all the bad parts later.

0 words. I just say I'll write tomorrow.

>>5179744
I generally agree. I write journals and essays on random shit, but when it comes to my actual work I can't bring myself to drool out ideas just to get the gears moving. I get that it works for some (probably most) people so you're right.

>>5173811
All these years, I've been using Times New Roman. Only now, do I see the error of my ways.

>>5173956
But John Green writes exclusively for an audience and money.

>>5173565
>Whats your minimal daily writing requirement? Do you even have one?
No
I'm not a writer

Make time every day to write and once you're in the thick of it you won't have to try and schedule time, it'll just become routine. TV and video games will seem like even bigger wastes of time than they already are

>tfw I have a 300 page novella coming out next month
>tfw my advance was $60k
>tfw reviewers who've been sent it are ~90% positive
>tfw already long-listed for my country's biggest writing prize

Feels good to be patrician yo

>>5174359
underrated post

>>5181893
>Anything that isn't productive is a waste of time.

>>5181893
time enjoyed wasting is not wasted time

>>5181956
So what's the name?

>>5182329
It's a meme man. You got baited.

>>5182223
never don't remember that you are going to die one day

>>5182359
That only makes cramming as much 'productivity' into your life even more absurd.

>>5180753
But Calibri is shit

>>5176628
Mamma mia!

>>5182359
So let's waste our time on 4chan

>>5182363
>>5184397
Or you could achieve something to better the human race.

A human dies. Eventually even a race dies. But we must pass the torch somehow. Archives. Probes. Let us be a pox on the naked universe.

>>5173565
500 words a day. I usually do more, but then I don't write everyday.

>>5177081
Many times I have too many ideas. You can't write something based on 100 different ideas and emotions at the same time...then again, I could do something as basic as Tao Lin and just spew. Call it "The Walking Coffee Machine" and have it based around a Starbucks brew machine come to life, given massive celebrity-hood for a matter of days, then forced to find a job and work because no one cares anymore and interviews don't pay too good. You see the problem?

That just seems like a bizarre way to approach creativity. I would think most writers have bursts of activity and long lulls of inactivity in between. Maybe I'm over-romanticizing novel writing but setting a hard cap for words seems a little too formulaic for my tastes.

>>5174397
>terminally ill children in suggestive poses
Fuck I remember that thread.

If only /b/'s imagination could be put to good use...

>>5176633
Sssh, you can't say that here.
They'll gangrape you with the pretentiousness and the arrogance of english majors that never wrote anything worth the paper it was printed on and never will.

You MUST say that King, Card, Asimov and generally anyone that sold more than 20 copies is an incompetent. First /lit/ rule.

>>5176628
>il mio amore, ch'a te soltanto drizza
My love, that only for you gets erected.

Heh.

>>5177539
What the fuck did you just say about Bob?

>>5173630 >>5173633 >>5173636 >>5173643 >>5173643 >>5173650 >>5173668 >>5173669
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>>5173801 >>5173806 >>5173809
>>5173811 >>5173814 >>5173839
>>5173841 >>5173885 >>5173845
>>5173895 >>5173896 >>5173899
>>5173902 >>5173904 >>5173909
>>5173912 >>5173915 >>5173918
>>5173925 >>5173938 >>5173956
>>5173959 >>5173966>>5173971
>>5173980 >>5173990 >>5174007
>>5174018 >>5174025 >>5174028
>>5174035 >5174042 >>5174090
>>5174106 >>5174108 >>5174114
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>>5174397 >>5174398 >>5174405
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>>5177949 >>5178226 >>5178319
>>5179109 >>5179420 >>5179430
>>5179651 >>5179664 >>5179744
>>5180656 >>5180687 >>5180753
>>5180763 >>5180804 >>5181893
>>5181956 >>5181978>>5182223
>>5182231 >>5182329 >>5182335
>>5182359 >5182363>>5183274 >>5183285 >>5184397 >>5185161 >>5185171 >>5185179 >>5185233 >>5186120 >>5186125 >>5186135 >>5186164
And this is why none of you have actually written a good novel yet.

>>5186232
how long did it take you to reply to all these posts?

was it worth it?

>>5186232

Well, someone's procrastinating.