/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11863835]

How's the writing career coming, /lit/?

[Anonymous No.11863841]

>writing
>career
please tell me you didn't seriously do this

[Anonymous No.11864360]

I got a poem published at the beginning of September, but I've had several rejections since then.

I've got enough poems on a similar theme to consider publishing them together as a chapbook, but I want to get a few more of the poems published individually before I give that a try.

[Anonymous No.11864680]

>>11863835
Nowhere, not that I'm trying.

[Anonymous No.11864691]

>>11863835
I’m going to be on the editorial staff for my university’s literary magazine, and I will hopefully publish some of my own work in as well, I was able to get a story in last year.

[Anonymous No.11864778]

>>11863835
Epic Poems are difficult to write.

[Anonymous No.11864799]

>>11864778
poems are hard in general. at least for me. when we had to do poetry in school it was the first time in my life I genuinely felt retarded. I just couldn't do it; I couldn't parse what was stressed or unstressed. Thankfully It was only a couple of assignments but I failed all of them that we weren't allowed to do free verse in and it nearly dropped my grade from an A to a B.

[Anonymous No.11864830]

>>11864778
I used to try to write epic poems, it was actually a lot of fun. Im no good at writing even short stories, but I could find a way to turn my poems into actual long form narratives which was very satisfying and interesting as a process.

Havent tried in a couple years though

[Anonymous No.11865059]

>>11864691
>>11863835
Write for LULZ.com. Tons of traffic, really underestimated. Recent article got over 500 comments. Actual numbers you can point to will help you more than anything when applying for any kind of writing gig.

If you're a regular contributor and want me to I'll personally build you a twitter with thousands of followers. No fake followers, just good old follow churn.

[Anonymous No.11865062]

>>11865059
>headhunter for an IC spam node here

[Anonymous No.11865073]

>>11865062
>IC spam node
what is

[Anonymous No.11865076]

>tfw my second draft is done
>it's horrible
>a frankenshit of mix-and-matched ideas, missed opportunities, and at least one plot thread that's never followed up on
>also it's not copy-edited


I want to get this published but there's no way in hell anyone would accept this, and I just don't have the fucking strength to write one more goddamn word.

Why can't writing the last sentence be the end of it?

[Anonymous No.11865081]

>>11865073
You don't know what the IC is and you're running a shitty chan themed alt news outlet?

[Anonymous No.11865083]

>>11865076
>a frankenshit of mix-and-matched ideas
What is the angle or main thing you're trying to say? Why did you write it?

[Anonymous No.11865088]

>>11865081

[Anonymous No.11865098]

>>11865088
I'll write for you as one of the 5 erudite posters on this board but the stipend is more dear than your paltry ass ad revenue

[Anonymous No.11866409]

>>11863835
I've started to write for my uni's magazine.

I guess I have to start somewhere.

[Anonymous No.11866435]

>>11865098
I can already tell it'd be useless self-indulgent masturbation with no angle or public interest. You're stuck here forever.

[Divyansh Lakshit No.11866564]

>>11865059
huh, I just searched "lulz.com" on youtube and see that youtubers love to do videos on their stories. What a great site with top best articles for my daily top best fantastic article needs.

[Anonymous No.11866649]

Has anyone tried submitting some of their work for a writing contest?

[Anonymous No.11866797]

>tomorrow I'll start writing my novel
It has been going like this for a couple of years now

[Anonymous No.11866820]

I pack boxes all day with people that are literally mentally challenged around me, that's how my writing career is going.

[Anonymous No.11866832]

>>11863835
>writing
>career
lol

I wish I was Jewish enough to break into screenwriting. At least that actually has a chance of being profitable.

[Anonymous No.11866833]

>>11866820
Same but I wash dishes and pots.

[Anonymous No.11866849]

>>11863835
Too much of a brainlet to be a writer. I have enough trouble forming thoughts in my head.

[Anonymous No.11866874]

>>11866649
Friend of mine did and she won an award for it. I'm still jealous of her.

[Anonymous No.11866895]

>>11866874
The white guy who sent in "i'm the realsest nigga these streets yo" under a fake tyrone name as a joke also won an creative writing award.

Awards are all political bullshit.

[Anonymous No.11867154]

quite, quite

[Anonymous No.11867208]

>>11863835
I've had four short stories published in small journals. I go to a spoken word night every month and read some of my work. People seem to dig it. In fact I've got a little fan club of people who tell me they look forward to hearing me every month.

[Anonymous No.11867238]

>>11866849
I have the exact opposite problem, too many thoughts
want to team up

[Anonymous No.11867242]

>>11866874
I won an award for some shitty poem that I felt ashamed for writing afterwards, and it made me feel even worse.

[Anonymous No.11867728]

>>11867242
>tfw over the years I've seen multiple posts like this
>multiple people saying they won contests and were ashamed of it

I cannot fathom you people who post like this. I have an overpowering ambition. I crave glory and recognition. I would jump at the chance to win a writing contest.

[Anonymous No.11867761]

>>11865076
>implying that your book should be anywhere near good on a second draft
get back to work anon, nobody cares what your second draft's like. You shouldn't either

[Anonymous No.11867871]

>sent to 16 agents
>solid rejection wall
>waited a year, rewrote and edited the shit out of it
>go to submit for another round
>literally running out of agents in the genre who might be amicable
>find 4, send out
>2 rejections 2 nonresponses
>might just back-burner it and work on 2nd (actually 4th) novel

[Anonymous No.11867929]

>>11863835
I've unironically been published in a small country. Problem is it wasn't a novel, and I'm nowhere close to actually finishing a novel, so the "career" is not coming along well.

[Anonymous No.11867967]

>>11863835
At this point I'm just trying to write a good story. If the crap I'm churning out now ever saw the light of day, I would end myself

[Anonymous No.11868013]

I cant write at the level of nabokov or tolstoy so whats the fucking point. I practice but Ill need more years.

[Anonymous No.11868031]

have a book of around 180 poems being published by a small press. it's called Information Blossoms.

[Anonymous No.11868488]

S’aight.

I’ve got a USA Today and multiple NYT best seller helping to edit my manuscript. One step closer.

[Anonymous No.11868495]

I wrote 300 words today.

[Anonymous No.11868499]

>>11868495
My nigga

[Anonymous No.11868501]

I write romance and a decent amount of reputable people have enjoyed my stuff. I've thought about self-publishing but I'm keeping my expectations incredibly low.

[Anonymous No.11868514]

>>11867871

you didn't get any manuscript or chapter requests??

post your query letter?

[Anonymous No.11868665]

>>11868495
he cute

[Anonymous No.11868767]

>>11868514
No, thanks for making me feel even worse.
Thing is after the year period and rewrite I did find a lot that was wanting with it. It was a bit immature in places, and the prose was clunky. Nothing majorly or structurally wrong, though. But enough to knock it down in the eyes of an agent. Also the beginning is somewhat slow. Tried cutting what I could but there's not much that could have been cut. That's just the structure because it's where the character motivations and political set-up are developing, which gives the foundation for all the events afterwards.
So tl;dr poisoned my chances for that draft by hitting up most of the possible agents with the first round. Can't hit them back up for round 2 because autism about not wanting to be annoying.
Next novel has a faster start, which I think was the most major problem. If I get this published it will help give me credibility to publish the first one.
It's sincerely good, there's a reason I tried querying it and not the 2 previous novels. Just fucked the query process up.
Well, lessons learned.

[Anonymous No.11868774]

>>11868767
Well, one of the agents said he'd have to pass on it but wanted to see any future work I do. So that's strongly indicative that it isn't actually bad. If/when I finish this one, I'll send it to him.

[Anonymous No.11868779]

>>11868767

I'm sure you can find more than 16 potential agents anon

if you're not getting any manuscript requests, there's clearly something very wrong with your query letter...

just screenshot it or post an expiring pastebin

[Anonymous No.11868782]

3 days without writing. I have to break that fucking streak.

That quote by Sam Hyde is stuck in my head: "If it's something you do a couple of times a week when you feel like it, don't do it."

[Anonymous No.11868807]

>>11865083
it's a fantasy story about how magic is just science that nobody's bothered to explain yet.

I think the message is handled okay, but a bigger issue is that the villain's goals make no sense, a major plot point ends up being a plot hole, and there are a handful of loose plot threads

[Anonymous No.11868810]

>>11866649
mothafuck contests nigga. Nothing I've ever enjoyed was written for a contest

>>11866820
If you can push yourself to write when work is done... you'll be able to make it anywhere

[Anonymous No.11868835]

>>11866797
start tonight. Even if it's a fucking sentence

>>11866849
writing isn't really about thoughts, man. just go ahead

>>11867208
aw that sounds like fun. I wanna do that

[Anonymous No.11868845]

>>11868779
This round, with the fixed draft and new and improved query letter, I only sent to 4 agents. And two turned it down because, understandably, it wasn't their thing. I have reasons I don't want to post it. Sorry, I know you're trying to help, but I do understand the situation and the reasons agents would have.
I can just, you know, write more novels. Doesn't matter.

[Anonymous No.11870070]

>>11868767
In publishing you need one of the following:
- A jewish surname
- A black/trans/womyn identity
- A large existing fan base so they know they can easily sell your work

[Anonymous No.11870982]

>>11866564
Go home shill.

[Anonymous No.11870983]

>>11870982
Autism speaks

[Anonymous No.11871168]

Working on my first book right now, planning to self publish it on Amazon
My hope is that I might develop enough of a fanbase after a few books that I can do something with a proper publisher

[Anonymous No.11872078]

I finally got started on my Apocalyptic Fantasy story, and I'm feeling good about it. Might have something worth reading by summertime.

[Anonymous No.11872501]

>>11864799
>when we had to do poetry in school it was the first time in my life I genuinely felt retarded.
>I couldn't parse what was stressed or unstressed.
How do I learn about poetry and stop being retarded. I never had to do any in school and I've always thought that poetry was some free form thing with no rules, so I have no idea where to even begin with writing or appreciating poetry.

[Anonymous No.11873859]

>>11863835
Got a new patron and well overdue on some commissions.

[Anonymous No.11874018]

>want to make visual novels
>probably will end up doing the writing, art, and music
>will likely sell it for nothing because if I didn't nobody would touch it since I have no connections

[Anonymous No.11874053]

>>11866874
>I'm still jealous of her.
We don’t have a sense of how long it’s been since she got the award. Using “still” without context doesn’t make sense. At the very least I’m confident it wasn’t yesterday.

[Anonymous No.11874271]

>>11874053
It was a few months ago. She's not even a writer. She just said she wanted to try her hand at it to see if she was good, submitted it solely to see if she was, and won the contest plus an award for it. It was pretty demoralizing desu, filled me with awful envy.

[Anonymous No.11874278]

i'm a technical writer. i'm a contractor, so i always have to keep my eyes open for new jobs. this one landed in my inbox today.

[Anonymous No.11874282]

>>11874278
they're looking for people to write "AI personalities"

[Anonymous No.11874284]

>>11874278
how do I get a job as a technical writer?

[Anonymous No.11874285]

>>11874282
plot twist, they are looking for eastern european languages

[Anonymous No.11874289]

>Have an idea for a book
>Have outlined it pretty well in my head
>Genuinely like it, feels like something I would want to read myself
>Have zero motivation to write it because it would never be what I want
>Don't even know how to start it if I did

[Anonymous No.11874292]

>>11874285

>>11874284
well you could try applying for some technical writer jobs

[Anonymous No.11874296]

>>11874292
looks like that creative writing course might come in handy after all

[Anonymous No.11874302]

>>11874296
there ya go anons, if you want a writing career or if you just fancy making alexa talk like spurdo that's the perfect job for you. get applying

[Anonymous No.11874526]

>>11866649
>contest
Here is one of the previous winning entries from a poetry contest I looked into.

>non-normative flags
>whip pink f*g umbrellas
>out of our trans-
>-gressive / expressive hands


>we’re marching / crawling / squirming
>on our tattoo-tanned bellies
>out from under the
>wind-whipped rainbow


>a man on the footpath leers at / up my
>swelling skirt … but in a romantic way / normative
>way / innocent way … (aside : i lost
>my innocence to this bloke branded
>the Gendered Healthcare System
>& his love of inflexible
>formal binaries)


>in truth, i’m flexible about discrimination : see also :
> new msg : ur a genderfree male, yeah?
> new msg : i get it – ur *just* a non-gendered female?!
> ur a general lack of person / per-
> -centage / reference point / pride?
> a flimsy foundation of cluttered pronouns
> & threadbare symbols?
> new msg : wait, r u *just* an emoji?


>let me try again :
> r u 1 of those tr*nnys?


>hey, i heard (on the news / on facebook / on this >scrawl of foot-
>-path propaganda) … that ur identity lacks
>identity / definition / something
>i can cling to because :
> i’m shook / a sook / a sock
> monster wagging my tail / working >myself into a state
> called ‘unable to show you
> the slightest respect’


>in truth, i’m *just* fucking tired
>of the marching, the crawling (see also : >indulging) : see also :
> exhausted / pooped / snoozed out
> of the cis-tem & sick-to-choking
> on ur systemic lasagna-layered >revulsion


>let me try again :

I have decided not to enter.

[Anonymous No.11874625]

>>11874526
Reminds me of the scene in 22 Jump Street when Jonah Hill goes on stage at a slam poetry night and has to make up a poem on the spot

[Anonymous No.11874837]

my only skill is writing. i'm not saying i'm great or anything, but it's probably my only skill. is there any hope for me in this world?

[Anonymous No.11875376]

>>11864799
Read Bukowski