/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11880588]

I fucked up /lit/

>see a short story competition in my region
>deadline is a few days away
>be a lonely autistic beta
>write a story in first-person about a lonely autistic beta who obsesses over a girl who often visits the same library as him
>he eventually spergs out and chases after her at night to ask her out
>the story doesn't win, but is shortlisted and published in the booklet of winning stories
>go to a kind of event where the prizes are handed out
>notice several people looking at me weirdly
>one guy comments about how nervous I look
>read the story back afterwards and notice various grammatical mistakes and incorrect usage of pretentious words

My legacy is over before it began. I will always be "that creepy weird guy who thinks stalking women is ok". I read an article today about a Twitter thread where women said what they'd love to do if men had a curfew of 9pm, and it reminded me of how the guy in my story is exactly the kind of loser they are frightened of.

What the fuck can I do about this? I wish I could go back and erase this.

[Anonymous No.11880599]

Get an editor to help you write the final draft of your suicide note

[Anonymous No.11880601]

>>11880588
Bear the shame and then realise it's just a spook illusion. You've crossed the biggest boundary already. Now you can write without worrying. Look at the shit fags like Dennis Cooper write. No one gives a fuck about them being psychotic pederast weirdos. You got published because you wrote in a short time frame which didn't allow you to overthink and start compromising your artistic vision for propriety and vanity.

[Anonymous No.11880619]

>>11880601
But I don't want to be Dennis Cooper, or some fringe shock jock writer. Nobody will read my story and think "wow, this guy is a sane, wise, observant, empathetic writer", they'll just think "oh man, why the heck would someone write that?".

[Anonymous No.11880623]

>>11880588
>>11880599

[Anonymous No.11880625]

>>11880619
Are you sane, wise, observant, and empathetic?

[Anonymous No.11880637]

>>11880625
I'd like to think I am observant and empathetic, yes. But the story just comes across as "normalizing" obsessive stalking. I read a review of Breece D'J Pancake's stories recently, and some female reviewer said his writing was creepy and misogynistic because the narrator of his story Trilobites keeps commenting on how sexy a teenage barmaid is, and she says how maybe with more life experience he would have matured and learned that such comments were problematic. The thing is that Breece's story is told from the perspective of a damaged guy, like most of his stories, but still the "creep" thing is applied to the writer. I also described the woman in the story as a "girl", which I know many will find creepy. The reason I felt somewhat ok doing this is because "woman" sounded weird, and because the English translation of Dusty's "White Nights" references the female he obsesses over as a "girl".

[Anonymous No.11880640]

care to disclose what pretentious words you used and how you used them?

[Anonymous No.11880641]

>>11880619
Except "sane, wise, observant, empathetic writers" write about depraved weirdos all the time. THomas Mann is considered a respectable bourgeois author. Dostoevsky. etc.
>There is only one real misfortune: to forfeit one's own good opinion of oneself. Lose your complacency, once betray your own self-contempt and the world will unhesitatingly endorse it.
Thomas Mann

[Anonymous No.11880643]

>>11880588
That's kind of embarrassing, anon. But it could be worse. I'm pretty sure my classmates know I take creepshots of their juicy butts.

[Anonymous No.11880650]

>>11880640
I can't sorry. I am way too paranoid that my posting them will be picked up by some kind algorithm and link this thread to the story, which is published online. I asked the people running the event if I could edit the story, but they are just hobbyists and doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, so they kept saying that my was story "reads fine!" and that they had already sent all the stories to the physical printers. It's just the kind of awkward way of writing that is really jarring when you read it, and if I read it from another person I'd assume he was sitting there with a thesaurus trying to avoid using the same word twice to seem clever or funny.

>>11880641
Thanks for the quotation but I'm to dumb to understand what he means by the world endorsing it. What are they endorsing exactly?

[Anonymous No.11880792]

bump

[Anonymous No.11880817]

I already enjoyed reading this thread.

Despite the retarded spook meme, this is definitely the best reply >>11880601

>you wrote in a short time frame which didn't allow you to overthink and start compromising your artistic vision for propriety and vanity
I really need to do this. You're lucky that you already had the opportunity OP.

[Anonymous No.11880819]

You seem highly neurotic and far to conscious not about your writing but what others will think of it.

I could not publish a story like you did. Because I am not good enough and too lazy to enterprise anything. You did something good, but you still see mistakes. I don't know, rewrite your story?

[Anonymous No.11880821]

>>11880817
Just for your own sake, please make sure you edit your work properly before submitting it, otherwise you'll end up like me desperately sending emails begging strangers to let you correct mistakes.

[Anonymous No.11880827]

>>11880819
I did in fact rewrite my story after submitting it, since I didn't think it would win the competition etc. The second version is more grammatically correct and less "cringeworthy", but perhaps lacks the kind of autistic intensity evident in the first version.

I am highly neurotic, but why wouldn't I be when I have gone from living a life totally obscure and untraceable to suddenly having my (pretentious-looking) photograph and cringeworthy, autistic, poorly written story published online ready for anyone who meets me and googles my (rare) name?

[Anonymous No.11880830]

>>11880821
Thanks OP. On the plus side, consider that most well known authors have many minor works from their early years which nobody gives a shit about. If you're famous enough that people do care about them, then you already won, so it's irrelevant.

Just make sure you don't stop writing. Get on with that next work. Prove how much better you've become.

ps. Read pic related to rise above 99% of the illiterate plebs out there.

[Anonymous No.11880847]

>>11880827
Yes I can relate. But with honesty, publishing something for people like us (I suppose the withdrawn, brooding type) is not something irrelevant or pointless.

[Anonymous No.11880986]

>>11880650
>What are they endorsing exactly?
your self-contempt