/lit/ - Literature

>Save up a few grand
>Quit job
>Go to third world country for 3 months and spend the entire time writing.

>>7814394
it's what pinecone did
or, maybe he had a rich dad...

>>7814394
Ive already done the first two steps and am currently at step three I suppose, except that im a native to slavshit eastern europe and have yet to write anything more than 500 words

>>7814412
Of course he had rich parents. But he didn't really work full-time either since his only role was to write a few articles a year for a quarterly in-house publication at Boeing.

It's 100% true. I have been wagecucking full-time for 2 years. The first few months were ok, I reached home at 6:30 and managed to write a novel in around 9 months, which sucked hard. I wrote one when I was NEET and it was accepted but I withdrew it because it didn't represent me well IMO. Now I'm just too tired to even read at home. I completely understand why people dismiss literature and art itself and commit themselves completely to practical matters in life. I'm not going to do that because I appreciate beauty and emotion too much, but still I am starting to view my own ambition as a sort of embarrassing thing to be discarded. The daily "grind" really is a thing, since a lot of your working life consists of wishing hours away, allowing any energy and enthusiasm you have to be repressed or used up on menial garbage. My mom said I could go live with her for like a year but the idea is just too depressing.

>>7814361
>off to college next year
>pre med will probably take up most of my time
>when/if i get to med school it will most certainly take up all of my time
>residency will be hell, working long hours for horrible play
A-at least in about 12 years ill have a stable job so my son can do something stupid like major in english and become a writer like i want to
;_;

>>7814424
Cuck

>>7814394
This is the only shot a nobody has desu. If you have two years savings you can maybe get a year out of a total shithole

>>7814422
>Fully automated luxury communism will never happen in your lifetime.

>>7814422
If you think you have a shot do it.
You won't do it later. And you won't be more energetic

>>7814433
Depends what "two years savings" equates to.

I have $24k saved up but the idea of paying some stupid landlord all that money in the hope that I'll write something that somebody will publish just doesn't appeal at all.

William Styron quit his first post-college job after a couple of weeks and his father supported him for 3 years as he wrote his debut "Lay Down In Darkness"

Patrick Suskind's parents supported him for years when he moved to Paris in his early 20s and finally published something aged 31.

Orhan Pamuk lived with his mother from the age of 22 to the age of 32 when his first book was published.

>>7814424
Kek, my biology major friend who had a 94 average, who never got any PSU or had any fun can't get into med school.
He would constantly mock my English degree and now I make more than him, and I don't make much.
We're all fucked, but it's funny to see stemtards think they will be spared

You could try looking for some kind of artist housing co-op that will house you for free provided the co-op gets a cut of whatever royalties you get from being published. Although getting into one of these is highly competitive.

>tfw been NEET for nearly a year with no real responsibilities and very little meeting with friends
>still not nearly enough time to do all the things I want and there never will be

This is the closest thing I feel to existential dread

>>7814446
I'd say if you have 25k fuck off to Cambodia where you can get rent for 200 a month and food is cheap as fuck.

The only difficult part is if you have loan payments you have to make.

Yes it sucks to not be supported by mommy and daddy, but the cliche about one life applies here; if you actually believe two years would give you a shot you could bet on yourself.

>>7814439
I think I have a shot (I mean even the thing I wrote at 21 was accepted, despite being something I would now dismiss as YA) but I'm also completely isolated and the idea of falling through the cracks of society and spending the rest of my life in some obscure state working some obscure job worries me. I realize "muh experience" is so important but still many if not most well-known authors sought routine and stability. Also I don't know if I am intelligent or organized enough to write something worthwhile. I shitpost on /lit/ during work hours and have written a bunch of posts which have been reposted a lot and also recently a lot of stuff "in-character", that is to say I have adopted the speech patterns and dispositions of the protagonist of one novel I started working on but scrapped for being tryhard, but I don't know if people finding my work funny and entertaining on here translates to anything beyond that. I'm also very well researched on contemporary publishing culture and know that comparatively speaking my own talents are at least as good as some of the writers (those in their late twenties / early 30s) making their debut. I am also confident, in a way that may seem aspergic, that I understand contemporary culture and care enough about it that my work will find an audience, or at least will be written in a way the type of demographic I associate mostly with, of which /lit/ is a part, will appreciate. Now that's all well and good but again the consequences of failure here just seem so bad that I don't know if it's risking so much for what is likely to be so little if not nothing at all.

If you're tired after work you need to eat better, lift weights, sleep more etc

Also, reading while exhausted is possible, it's just a matter of practice.

>>7814468
You're literally a normie cuckold. Fuck off.

>>7814500

The focus I get from living healthy is for my benefit alone. I haven't had a friend in 5 years.

>>7814505
I don't give a fuck. You're just plain stupid.

>>7814508
>>7814500

>writing dreams
>spends his life posting about troll books on 4chan

yeah nah, you're a loser and you will never amount to anything.

>>7814508

No I'm not, I've been in OPs situation and I've managed to overcome it by finding means to increase my energy.
Why is this so triggering for you? Are you fat as hell or what's your deal?

>>7814361
At least you have a job, it's not like your writing was going to bring in any money anyway.

>>7814500
check this edgy sluthater get triggered from someone saying that maybe living as a subhuman porn addict melting ball of fat isn't ideal

>>7814518
Nice projection kiddo

>>7814361
your vision, inner fire and creative mania are weak

learn to burn the candle at both ends, the only true way to make art

>>7814513
No my body is very lithe and very cute.

>>7814523
congrats on being a faggot

>>7814523
L O N... etc. desu senpai

>>7814462

sounds pretty bad tbqfh

post an excerpt and we'll tell you

>>7814462
Don't take your life so seriously, lol. Most people fail and never try, might as well try and fail

Saving some kind of face by never trying is no consolation

>>7814523
pics senpai

>>7814541
It's just a matter of how I define "trying". My research tells me that many if not most authors were not working full-time (i.e. 8:30am - 5:30pm with a 30 minute commute either way) while writing something that turned out to be worthwhile. In fact I struggle to find example of those who did, and i doubt anybody in this thread will be able to provide any examples either. But the fact is, practically speaking, the publishing industry is losing a great deal of money overall (small presses closing etc), there are more people submitting now than ever before (meaning rejections are more likely for work that would once have been considered, wages / earnings for writers are at their lowest point in a long long time and the number of people willing to read literary fiction (i.e. not conspicuous genre stuff) is difficult to quantify. Now my own reaction to that two years ago would have been "oh well anybody seriously dedicated to their art would persevere and commit themselves fully to it", but the question is am I willing to risk a life of penury, obscurity and romantic loneliness (on account of being poor and obscure) when others have instead established themselves within a career and waited until their 30s to begin writing?

I mean the life of a struggling artist seems romantic until you're 27 and working as a part-time shelf stacker telling yourself the experience will totally give you credibility once your book makes it big, meanwhile your 22 year old co-worker on a break from college found you interesting at first but kinda thinks you're a dead-end kind of guy for essentially having no money and only a bunch of unpublished writing to your name and a book comes out by some guy who is like 32 and who worked as an accountant until he was 28 when he could afford to take it easy for a couple of years and finally spend his time writing in relative ease and comfort while you're crying in bed because the shitty room you rent without a contract from a Honduran landlord is loud on account of his three nephews having moved in without telling you first and spending their days getting high and listening to Pitbull on loop with bass-boosted speakers. I mean sure I'd love to think I'd instead turn out like Jonathan Safran Foer working part-time at a library in New York and spending his free time writing quirky, comedic books while dating some metropolitan qt but really having zero social skills and resembling in speech and disposition some character from a Dostoevsky short story means I'm more likely to end up like Henry Darger minus the naivety regarding female genitalia. dying in some hovel in some obscure city with a bunch of novels unpublished to my name which the landlord will destroy when he figures my laptop isn't worth selling on and throws it in the trash.

>>7814653
I mean maybe I'm just a stupid, materialistic sheltered cuck for wanting a life of relative material comfort and social, I don't know. I mean if I was a musician and was poor I wouldn't care, since I could plays shows etc and at least have a bunch of stuff to my name. But with writing it's like such ab obscure and isolated art that dedicating oneself to it can easily lead to suicide or enforced abstinence or just pure life-long cuckery.

Im not a writer, nor do I want to be but I'd love to quit my job. I have $22k saved up (could have more but I impulse buy a lot of dumb shit) but I just have no idea what I want to do.

>>7814424

People are going to call you a cuck for this, but in 10 years you will have the best setup for leisure time. If you go into family practice you can work basically 2.5 days per week for an insane amount of money.

>>7814500

You are pathetic

>>7814710
>in 10 years
Literally laughed out loud.

>>7814394
>tfw already in a 3rd world country

>>7814657
Jesus dude, I'm throwing a party later you need to come.

>>7814766
Why? Please articulate yourself as best as possible.

[/spoiler] Where is your party? [/spoiler]

>tfw shit tier factory job

>>7814791
How old?

>>7814422
>My mom said I could go live with her for like a year but the idea is just too depressing.
A: this is the only shot you're going to get of being creative. It's not going to happen when you have real job; that just isn't how this works.

B: if you do that you're probably going to get stuck in a hole and have a very hard time getting out. People aren't meant to be apart from mainstream society; it warps them and makes it difficult to get involved again once you want to.

>>7814773
It's a joke which plays upon the fact that you are a massive downer. The comedy comes from the fact that your posts are very negative and compromising, and the invitation to a hypothetical party creates a humorous juxtaposition given the content of your posts.

That being said you may or may not be fun to be around at a party, but the content of your post is what is being lampooned in this case.

>>7814822
>it warps them and makes it difficult to get involved again once you want to.

Yeah, nah, I'm by no means a part of mainstream society despite being a wagecuck.

Also my mom lives in Wyoming with her partner so it's not as if I feel at home when I'm there. They're in their 60s and stuff but still I'd rather be Ignatius than Gregor Samsa.

>>7814838
>you must be fun at parties

nice one friendo, what next, are you gonna ask if he mad bro?

>>7814859
No I'm just gonna tell you it's okay, and you should follow your dreams.

>tfw being NEET is so freeing that I gave up my writing dreams and am content to exist

>>7814838
haha so you actually do have asperger's

>>7814878
Im not OP, but I agree, he shouldnt let his dreams be memes

>>7814838
I'm actually extremely good company, though only in one-on-one situations. In a group setting I am a miserable drain on the collective good mood, though in a one-on-one situation I am curious, insightful, entertaining, interesting and expressive. It's a difficult quandary as the only way to really enter into an intimate situation with another individual is to first meet them via a social group setting. In a group setting I have been accused of being "quiet" and "pure" though in talking to one person I have received a great deal of positive reviews, and have had individuals say I "make them think", that I am "a great listener" and that I "have so much to say". But yes overall I am a massive downer, and my appreciation for skepticism and the pessimistic philosophical position is probably down to my relatively unhappy childhood (unhappy in the civilized, Western sense where unhappiness does not have to equate to being forced to work 18 hours a day on a scrapheap). I am however beyond taking life too seriously, and I treat my own existence as a sort of ongoing joke at my own expense, however I am fully aware that other people perceive me, having never talked to me (or having only talked to me in a group setting) as "odd", "serious", "supercilious" (they perhaps think this without using this word as part of their internal dialogue in relation to my existence), "boring", "sad", "depressed", "autistic", "strange", "haughty", "detached", "intimidating" (whether this has ever resulted in my being viewed as attractive by any member of the opposite sex I'll never know, though I assume it hasn't) and so on.

>>7814907

>>7814882
Kek I have one of these posters with a play on the phrase 'fall down 7 times stand up 8'. It says fall down 7 times, I'll just take a nap.

>>7814943
Wow that's fucking awesome man!

>>7814468

I feel like when I get home from work, I'm not tired in the physical sense, necessarily.

I'm just wore out mentally, from having to do some boring menial job for 8 hours, and to pretend that I don't want to smash myself against the wall when I'm there. At work, I feel like I'm constantly restraining myself from going insane. It takes a lot of mental energy. It's like I used up all my mental resources on not going insane.

>>7814907
I was in a situation the other day where I met two people that were the type that I would seperatly have a fun conversation with, but I just could couldn't manage to find anything interesting in the conversation. I think that I create a character which reflects the qualities that I percieve that the other admires, which gives me a charismatic appeal. But when I'm in a group I can't use that ability, there are too many overlapping values and dislikes, especially with new people where the tension is high and everyone is self conscious of their first impression. I come off as shy and aloof in groups unless I really know the people. Everyone speaks a different language, and I'm bilingual, and enjoy practicing in anothers native tongue. My social skills are getting worse, for the last few years I've spent the majority of my time alone dedicated to study -- working nights, or making money over the summers to support myself during the year. If you want to live the /lit/ life and write or whatever there is opportunity, that is, if your hustle is good enough.

>>7815073

Well yeah but excercising helps with that bit as well. It improves concentration, it improves overall well being, it improves sleep, it makes you feel calmer and more motivated.

It's not about being physically stronger so you can lift heavier shit in your day to day life, it actually does help mental performance.

The reason I got into lifting was to relieve stress when I was playing poker it worked out amazingly well and all my saved handhistory suggests that the weeks where I skimped on excercise to play more ended up being losing weeks, almost no exceptions.

>>7814394
>Go to third world country
>spend the entire time writing.

>>7814907
>though in talking to one person I have received a great deal of positive reviews
>reviews

lol I've not read any Tao Lin (why would I?) but this is how I imagine he writes

>is he being clever and ironic or is he just autistic?

Who knows.

>Firefighter
>On a rotating 4 days on 4 days off schedule
>Read when at the station, write when at home

Fucking perfect writing occupation lads.

>>7814717
underrated post

There's always the hope that I'll be a late bloomer and only really write anything substantial later in life when I'm retired

If I live that long

>left job to go study for an English BA at uni because I was sick of working and wanted to get immersed in academia again
>STEM friends are busy almost 24/7 with study timestable + work
>literally free timestable because lolarts and never go to classes because I've been doing all the work super early
>almost unlimited free time
>instead of writing like I should be doing I spend it all wanking and browsing
>tfw life will come crashing back into the reality that is wageslaving after the next year

>>7814361
>tfw all my ideas come to me during work.


Always. Always bring a notepad for a quick note.

>>7816913
wew lad

>>7814721
America?

sounds like you've got some sand in your vagina, kid. Do the work.

I wrote 12 books in nine years while balancing 40 hour work weeks, college, and a marriage.
The problem is you're like dozens of other wannabe writers I see in groups. You want the end product of satisfaction and gratification without having to do the work. If you're not willing to put in the time and effort then you can keep being one of those people. I hope you do decide to make the commitment and know the joy of finishing a work of your own but in the meantime just stop it with the whining.

>>7814523
seconding pics

>>7815164
im drunk and read this thread and your posts were interesting.

nice having you around anon

>tfw i got a full ride scholarship with no teaching obligations
>tfw i'm literally getting paid $40k/yr american to read books and exist, for the next half a decade or more, guaranteed
>tfw right now i'm working 30-35 hour weeks, plus coursework, plus horrific commuting
>tfw five more months of this fucking nightmare and then i will ascend to actual productivity and enjoyment of what i'm doing for once in my entire goddamn university career
>tfw this endless slog was worth it

So said Kafka.

>>7814717

It's amazing to me that people have this little foresight. Bust ass from 18 to 28, then live a life of wealth from 28 - death. Imagine not waiting on your government check every other week for the rest of your life so you can buy bread and peanut butter

>>7817122
Yeah, but your books are utter garbage. Not worth the printer paper you wasted. IMHO TBP(perfectly)H SENPAI(...)

and he proceeded to write amazing fiction while lurking behind his bureaucratic desk.

>>7817122
what have you wrote that has any merit? i dont know who you are, but it seems like >>7818661 is right desu

>>7817122
KEK

>>7818709
*C.U.CK

>>7818661
>>7818667
>>7818710
Gasguy reply to this

>>7818731
What? He hasn't read my books. And you know what? He probably hasn't written even one book himself. There's always going to be people who will try and drag you down for your accomplishments and those people have nothing going for them because they're bitter. Is my series fucking "gravitys rainbow meets the sandtrout from dune"? Of course not but it's a good set of training wheels to refine my skills so that I'll improve and make something really great. I enjoy writing. It's fun. Don't like it? Don't read it.

I know it sounds like a pair a docs but repetitive work can be good for stimulating creativity.

Daily reminder this guy wrote As I Lay Dying while shoveling coal for a living, which is more brutal a job than anything anyone here does for a living. If you're smart and motivated enough, you'll find a way. But instead here you are. On 4chan.

>>7819845
Post some prose. You must be really good w/ that amount of experience.

>>7817185
>tfw the university screws you out of the opportunity during your last month
>tfw you complain but lack both the energy and funds to pose any serious threat to them
>tfw this trick has worked on literally thousands of people like you
>tfw the university heads all laugh at the work they sucked out of these young intellectuals over cigars and cold cuts.

>>7819949
He's not, his books are mediocre at best. He's getting all histrionic now when people point that out, seems to believe that quantity is quality. He's not wrong to say most people don't put in the work and they need to, but he is wrong to claim that the work is all that matters. I hope he does get some sort of readership after all the work he's put in to his stuff because he has nothing else going for him and it would be tragic if it all amounted to nothing.

>>7814394
This, or you could just be homeless. I live off of less than 2k a year being homeless, and that's with a good bit of traveling across the country.

>>7819977
Post some of his stuff if you got any.

On readership, if he does get one, it'll be more wasted paper and resources if its crap. The world doesn't need another King or Rowling, we need more Homers.

>>7819998
>No one tells you the thing you love most is going to kill you.

>Racing a nuclear fusion-powered hovercraft isn’t the safest line of work. Not for someone wanting to die of old age, anyway. Adding a pack of thirty more racers to the high speed mix doesn't help either. What could be more ludicrous than that? Having that same hovercraft you’re strapped to catch fire.

>No one tells you the thing you love more than anything is going to be what kills you. No one says those words to you, ever. People will tell you about things like “potential danger” or give obscure statistics. But when you’re chasing a dream, a message like that has to come on its own. And it usually comes when you least expect it. For Fennius Taylor, it didn’t come when the sickly-sweet smell from the broken coolant line found his nose. And it didn’t register as wisps of grey smoke began creeping in through the vents. It didn’t happen when the concrete barrier of a hairpin turn threatened to turn his craft into smoldering wreckage. None of these things on their own could reach Fennius. It was only after the warning light marked “FIRE” in the dashboard of his racer began flashing that the truth finally hit home. It finally took the thought of burning alive for all three to find the last strands of rational thought buried in his desire to win. Ask any other racer in the league what they’d do if their “sled” caught fire, and they’d tell you the same thing:

>Pull to the outside of the track and activate the counter fire measures”.

>So why would teenage racing phenom Fennius Taylor be any different? Because he knows a side effect of activating the counter-fire measures will power down the fusion core.

>When you need thousands of pounds of thrust to continue chasing the perfect season, a little fire can keep you motivated to chaieve your goals. If someone had asked Fennius three years ago what he’d do in an emergency like this, he would’ve agreed with the others. But now? With a perfect season on the line? He’s going to pilot this time bomb until either he gets his checkered flag or the whole thing goes up in flames. Why would anyone act this way? This is the madness of the sport. This is what it’s like to chase a dream. This is where the adventure begins. This is (book title)

>>7820019
The voice is like a 12 year old trapped in a 40 year old's body. I hope the author finds something else to do. Not everyone was meant to write.

>>7819977
See? This is the guy I'm talking about.
Quantity doesn't equal quality. But over time, with enough quantity, quality begins to emerge. In addition, you have to have some good ideas to go with the prose otherwise you're reading flowery prose that goes nowhere. Sure I used Joseph Campbell's crutch for a frame work, but in my defense so did Tolkein, George Lucas, and J K Rowling. In my favor, I'm utilizing tropes the pre Internet writers didn't have access to by the limits of their time. #digitalhorcruxlightsaber

You folks sometimes use a word that means something along the lines of self improvement or completing an action in order to mentally/philosophically gain from it. Something to that effect but googling has been shit. Help please.

>>7820072
Talk to your psychiatrist.

>>7820072
You've written how many hundreds of thousands of words now? Your prose still sucks and you're writing about insipidly childish and unoriginal, unimaginative things. Obviously your attempt of throwing shit at the wall doesn't work, because it hasn't stuck. That guy who writes the Smash Brother's fanfic has written more than you and he's even worse.

>>7820072
>citing Tolkien, Lucas and Rowling in one's defence

Help lads, the gasser is losing it.

>>7820072
I like the Gass poster a lot more than this Gas poster.

He's not wrong, you know.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

>>7820159
What does that have to do with anything?

I've moved to Paris and I like my life although I'm quite lonely (except for gf). I'm a school teacher and I'm contacted for two years however despite getting 13 weeks holiday a year I'm not getting paid enough to really save anything. I'm writing and reading a lot but I still feel like a visitor. I'm 27.

>>7820159
>>7820072

That's so cool Gas-senpai, turning off your trip!

>>7820172
The monomyth concept has been very popular in American literary studies and writing guides since at least the 1970s. Christopher Vogler, a Hollywood film producer and writer, created a 7-page company memo, A Practical Guide to The Hero With a Thousand Faces,[20] based on Campbell's work. Vogler's memo was later developed into the late 1990s book, The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers. George Lucas' Star Wars (1977) was notably classified as monomyth almost as soon as it came out.[21] Numerous other works of popular fiction have been forwarded as examples of the monomyth template, including Spenser's The Fairie Queene,[22] Melville's Moby Dick,[23] Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre,[24] works by Charles Dickens, Faulkner, Maugham, J. D. Salinger,[25] Hemingway,[26] Mark Twain,[27] W. B. Yeats,[28] C. S. Lewis,[29] and J. R. R. Tolkien,[30] Seamus Heaney[31] and Stephen King,[32] among numerous others.

In addition to the extensive discussion between Campbell and Bill Moyers broadcast in 1988 on PBS as The Power of Myth (Filmed at "Skywalker Ranch"), on Campbell's influence on the Star Wars films, Lucas himself gave an extensive interview for the biography Joseph Campbell: A Fire in the Mind (Larsen and Larsen, 2002, pages 541-543) on this topic. In this interview, Lucas states that in the early 1970s after completing his early film, American Graffiti, "it came to me that there really was no modern use of mythology...so that's when I started doing more strenuous research on fairy tales, folklore and mythology, and I started reading Joe's books. Before that I hadn't read any of Joe's books.... It was very eerie because in reading The Hero with A Thousand Faces I began to realize that my first draft of Star Wars was following classical motifs"(p. 541). Twelve years after the making of The Power of Myth, Moyers and Lucas met again for the 1999 interview, the Mythology of Star Wars with George Lucas & Bill Moyers, to further discuss the impact of Campbell's work on Lucas's films.[33] In addition, the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution sponsored an exhibit during the late 1990s called Star Wars: The Magic of Myth which discussed the ways in which Campbell's work shaped the Star Wars films[34] A companion guide of the same name was published in 1997.

>>7820179
Yes, it's common knowledge that Lucas used Campbell's idea of the monomyth. I repeat, what does that have to do with anything?

>>7820188
nevermind. nothing i guess.
fuck it. go post pepe's or whatever it is you do. i quit.
fun fact: heres a picture of a friend of mine right before they pulled the plug on him. he was a writer who never finished his book

>>7820205
You're incorrigible.

>>7814521
Nice buzzword fag loser

>>7820205

heh wtf

>>7820257
poor guy passed away last summer. he was in my writers group. he went out one evening and collapsed at the movie theater. he recovered some and since he didnt have any family i visited him in the hospital. i gave him my copy of the hobbit to help pass the time. two days later he relapsed and since they couldnt contat family they had to honor his DNR. I was there because i thought he shouldnt have to die surrounded by strangers.

>>7814791
Read this. Seriously.

>>7814424
you won't end up doing premed. nothing to worry about.

>>7820499
i own that novel.. nice read.