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/lit/ - Literature

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10897381 No.10897381 [Reply] [Original]

>The first full length novel you write will be shit
>You will spend hundreds of hours on something you will never want published.
>you will spend countless hours researching, and outlining your project so that it will be shit.

Are you going to be the one that breaks that mold

>> No.10897437
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10897437

wew... looks like my thread couldn't draw any dimes

>> No.10897455

>>10897381
I'm finishing my 8th rewriting, and I think it is OK. Thank you though.

>> No.10897485

>>10897381
I've actually done exactly that. Twice. Closest I got was a vetted New York agent asking for a complete read then telling me that she liked the character but this particular story would not sell her. And Hollywood would never buy or option the rights because filming it would be too expensive and audiences would hate the setting.

So I have an agent ready to read my next thing if I can ever get it ready. This is what trying to be an "artist" looks like. I am pandering to an audience's expectations and whims in order to sell a thing.

>> No.10897520

>>10897485
>thinking you can publish anything other than commercial fiction as an unknown writer

Basically everyone published today publishing literary stuff is already established (whether that be for writing or not), has connections ect. Practically no one is going to take the literary work of an unknown writer cold submitting to an agent. /lit/ deludes itself to think otherwise though

>> No.10897549

>>10897520
Oh it's totally commercial. But so was Ashenden, and Tears of Autumn. So is A Most Wanted Man. Lulu In Marakech didn't aspire very highly either. I don't subscribe to the false pleb/patrician dichotomy. I'm strictly equestrian.

>> No.10897615

>>10897381
It won't be shit, anon. Because if the idea is enough to motivate you to do that much work, if the idea CAN be examined in that much detail, and elaborated to every last baroque spire in embodiment of its goal, you've examined it far more carefully than anyone else will do.

>> No.10897652

>>10897381

>You will spend hundreds of hours on something you will never want published.

You've already spent thousands of hours shitposting, your poor fool.

>> No.10897665

DFW's first novel was the broom of the system.
he already broke the mold.

>> No.10898342

already wrote it. from here its ony good shit published

>> No.10898739

>>10897381
Just do it. I’m finishing up my fourth one now. Once you reach that point you’ll either be good enough to write one that’s publishable or you can just go back and re-write the four you already have so that they aren’t shit.

>> No.10898752

>>10897381

It's so hard to admit because there's like a few pages of gold in that pile of shit.

>> No.10898923

>>10897485
>the absolute state of American "literature"

Dear Mr. Joyce, I can't accept your novel Ulysses because it wouldn't make a very good film, plus the little girls would hate the main character

>> No.10898931

>>10897615
this. Have faith. Enjoy the fact that you love doing something so much because a lot of people don't have that.

>> No.10898940

>>10897381
>implying any of that matters
Go back to /r9k/ to dwell on your failures

>> No.10898952

>>10897652
>implying shitposting is not literally publishing
It's not we're not even living in the same cypherpunk postmodern info-dreamstate anon, I'm worried about you.

>> No.10898960

>>10898923
>Implying it has not been the same shit since the rise of the publishing industry circa 1830
Do you even into Lost Illusions by Balzac?
Best novel tbqh, that tackles the fact that publishers are capitalists that want and need money, and literary critics leeches that live off paid content.

>> No.10898964

I do stand up every once in a while.

I performed yesterday with jokes that rattled around in my head for months.

I thought my jokes weren't funny because I had become so familiar with them.

The crowd laughed hard.

What is old to you, is new to others.

Don't give up, Anons.

Don't let these thoughts ruin your work. Forge ahead and skim the slag, when needed.

Present it in its whole.

And know you tried when others failed.

An unrealized dream is poison to the mind.

>> No.10899836

all along I realized it was only sick pretending. only a handful of words. a handful, a handful, not even a handful. I am never less literary than when I try. Than when I try to be honest. I have tried to see more clearly through myself. But it only leads to ... I am never able to rewrite anything, even a single time. It goes nowhere and it feels like nothing... I'm sorry! Through it all I suppose I sheepishly felt I was leading you somewhere. Well I don't know why you came with me. I guess I just feel lonely. And there is something reassuring about prodding these keys into the keyboard, even if they leap up, undaunted, as soon as my fingers travel away. There is a regular rhythm to it. At least I can type. A primitive man in the jungle would look at this skill and he would hardly believe his eyes. Am I some loom-weaver? No, just an inveterate masturbator. I have to stop. I can't console her. Somehow I failed to console her. Just a bad feeling. A feeling that I was unable to console her. I'm sorry. I suppose you figured that, after all, I really would have led you somewhere. These words travel down my arms and spark out of the ends of my fingers. Not a single metaphor will suffice to rescue me. I don't know why I took the time. Nobody listens, fewer understand--and those who understand immediately forget. I don't know why I do this. Even the worst have a taste for love, even the best don't understand it. Life is too confusing. It's something beyond the arrangement of words or anything you can understand. It has something to do with destiny. All my life I've been chasing it, trying to escape B-/C+, and all my life I've failed. I'm like a fish who keeps bumping his head against the edge of the fishbowl. Even that failed to make the mark. It's enough, but it's never enough. It's like it's my destiny to be the background flavor that only exists so that the special can even more prettily shine. Now I have run my course. Almost at 2007. I wonder if I can hit it exactly. Perfect.

>> No.10899859

>>10897381
Don’t really understand this attitude. Goethe wrote Faust years before he felt he wanted to publish it. He reiterated everything in it and rewrote everything until he thought it was good enough to publish.

Why is everyone so entitled that they think they put the least amount of effort into something and they should be handed what they want? If you think the basic idea was good or worked go at it. Maybe if it doesn’t get published it wasn’t fucking good enough; so you learn from the mistakes you made and cut lengths and shorten your schedule meet people make connection. Just keep life going. You intentionally force yourself come to a standstill when you could be out there pursuing what you want: and that’s on you, no universe to be blamed here, but you!