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/lit/ - Literature

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3255377 No.3255377 [Reply] [Original]

Why haven't you written a book yet?

>> No.3255384

>>3255377
>implying we haven't
http://www.amazon.com/The-Story-of-Johnny-ebook/dp/B009HK9820

>> No.3255380

Because I'm not a writer.

>> No.3255385

I did. I wrote two when I was a teenager. They were shit.

>implying writing a book is difficult.

>> No.3255597

>>3255377
Because I wanna become a poet not a author

>> No.3255626 [SPOILER] 
File: 42 KB, 500x376, 1355372853952.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3255626

I spent the last 2 or 3 weeks doing nothing but write. I wake up, have a cup of coffee and go write. I skip lunch sometimes, eat sandwiches just so I can just keep writing. I need to get some sleep now, but I'm getting there, it's not finished yet but I made a lot of progress. It will be just a fantastic read, I know it will.

Pic related.

>> No.3255637

Because I'm too busy writing fanfiction

>> No.3255646

>>3255377
Because every time I look at my poetry a week after I write it, I realize that it's shit and don't submit it anywhere :(

>> No.3255647

I can't write more than a page.

It's not that I'm too stupid to write more, at least I hope not, but whenever I think of someone reading a truthful expression of my creative abilities I find myself crippled with anxiety and unable to write.

>> No.3255649

>Finals week
Yeah, nah.
My last exam is tomorrow, so after that is smooth sailin'

>> No.3255662

>>3255647
Write for yourself. Pretend it's a journal that no one will ever read.

The ideas, the words, the thoughts, the images, those things running through your head is what counts. No one will read them, forget about it. Write and if you don't know how to connect them, write a single lonely paragraphy. Write a sentence. Write a page. Write what comes to mind.

In time, this practice will give you new more intricate ideas, believe me. They will develop and you'll feel like connecting things up, expanding, polishing, etc. Re-read your work after some time.

Whether it is a paragraph, a short story or a novel, good material will emerge. Again: forget if anyone will ever read. Actually, even further: pretend they will never read (that's possible, maybe probable).

If you are writing for others, they are doing the writing for you and you are doing the job of thinking how they will react.

It's the other way around, pal.

>> No.3255664

"writing" is so passe

>> No.3255671

Because whenever I begin writing I lose interest in my own stories after only a few pages

>> No.3255676

>>3255649
>last exam tomorrow
me too! ha, and I'm also planning out a novel now. what a serendipitous thread

>> No.3255681

>>3255662
I know, I know all that, but whenever I try to write for myself all I can think about is how bad my shit is compared to things I've read, and writing starts to feel like a useless masturbatory exercise.

No, I was just talking about why I can't right a book. Even if I had the talent of Melville, Joyce, or even fucking McCarthy, I could never be a professional writer because I'm far too neurotic.

I'll stick to my menial labor, thank you. I prefer to consume literature in peace, and I want nothing to do with its writing.

>> No.3255699

>>3255676
Coolbeans, Anon. What's your novel about? Be sure to plan it out thoroughly, including themes and character arcs. I've been looking at a novel I've been writing for the past year and have realized that it's an unfocused mess that needs some serious editing, all because I didn't have a clear picture in mind from the get go. Don't follow in my footsteps!

>> No.3255701

I do write. Writing a novel little spurts at a time takes quite a long time and I'm savoring it. I only have 1 idea for the book and I don't want to run out and feeling uncreative.

>> No.3255704

>>3255647
>but whenever I think of someone reading a truthful expression of my creative abilities I find myself crippled with anxiety and unable to write.

I know that feel.

I also get a feeling of pretentiousness flow through my body whenever I try to write anything "beautiful" or too descriptive...

It feels like I'm jerking off to a picture of myself

I don't know how writers manage it

>> No.3255773 [DELETED] 

I am writing one now.

But it's in Korean so I don't think I'll ever get noticed or published (in Korea or anywhere)

>> No.3255834

>>3255647
Consume alcohol till that voice in your head telling you what a self indulgent cuntbag you are shuts up, then write.

That's what I do, as far as I know it's the only thing that works.

>> No.3255843

>>3255834
dats ur excuz for ur alcoholizm.

>> No.3255871

>>3255385
>They were shit.
Mine too. This is why I don't write.

>> No.3255883

I already wrote one, have another that I've abandoned, and another that's on hold.

>> No.3255972

Since i was 12 I've written about five, and published three independently. I'm working on my fourth now (just wrapped for the night and got on the 'pooter), which I hope will get "picked up" by somebody who can market it better than I.

>> No.3255987

I have the opposite problem, I know the entire plot, scenes, characters, setting, theme. My issue is the narrative voice - I'm half through and I just don't like it - and it's critical I find it. I don't want to do a first person because I don't want to. But I'm getting frustrated. So I read TONS of other books, it's always just one more. I know I need to take one scene and write it a bunch of different ways but now I feel lazy and don't like any of the scenes. BAD.

>> No.3256046

Because I'm gay.

>> No.3256049

because i just put my legs over my head and came in my mouth. seriously.

also because i drink too much

>> No.3256050
File: 20 KB, 409x452, professor-zimbardo-last-lecture.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3256050

>>3256046

Yeah, gay people can't write books. They're too busy having a decadent lifestyle and taking it in the bum in public lavatories.

>> No.3256063

>>3255384
Fuck me. I'm so tempted to buy this

>> No.3256072

>>3255377

Because I may be ridiculed and then I'd kill myself

>> No.3256087

>>3256063
Finished the sample, it's only feels.

>> No.3256089

>>3256063
Yeah, this is pretty good.

>> No.3256094

ITT: massive amounts of samefagging by whoever wrote the thing in OP.

>> No.3256101

>>3255384
>Lit Rand (Author)
Oh wow what the fuck is this.

>> No.3256112

>>3255377
Jesus Christ I hate these terrible fucking feel-good inspirational bullshit speeches. You know what's really standing between people and their goals? Real fucking obstacles.

All this kind of shit does is invalidates the achievements of people who have actually worked hard and overcome these real obstacles, and makes everyone who legitimately struggles against them feel like a useless asshole.

>> No.3256134

>>3255384
someone give a pdf of this please

>> No.3256140

>>3256112

This. Achievement takes effort, not the reading of a trivial Tumblr snippet.

>> No.3256165

Because I lack an idea which I actually like.
I have a lot of free time at the moment and it sucks that I don't know how to use it properly.

>> No.3256171
File: 18 KB, 300x300, 518xIR1GesL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-52,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3256171

>>3255384
I bought a copy, no fuck is given.

>2012
>not buying a book by /lit/ rand

>> No.3256174
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3256174

>>3256112
>>3256140
>Real fucking obstacles
As a writer I will refute you with personal honesty.

I'm a lazy fuck.

All I think about every day is my book, my story, but I ALT TAB to 4chan and waste HOURS on ANYTHING BUT writing!

"Real fucking obstacles."!? Of course achievement takes 'effort' but that completely depends on YOU. Look at the African boy accepted to MIT!
http://romneymanassa.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/self-taught-african-boy-impresses-mit/

The "real fucking obstacles" didn't matter to him, it was his own self that made his 'achievements' possible!

If anything Achievements are MORE noteworthy when we have more obstacles to overcome. Again all of this falls upon the shoulders of the person and their discipline!

I'm not going to achieve anything because of obstacles, but because of my own lazy ass!

>> No.3256216

>>3255681
If you really want to write, practice dude. Just write a little bit each day until you become more comfortable doing it.

>> No.3256234

>>3256174
The individual (no matter how well-meaning he might be, no matter how much strength he might have, if only he would use it) does not have the passion to rip himself away from either the coils of Reflection or the seductive ambiguities of Reflection; nor do the surroundings and times have any events or passions, but rather provide a negative setting of a habit of reflection, which plays with some illusory project only to betray him in the end with a way out: it shows him that the most clever thing to do is nothing at all. Vis inertiae is the foundation of the tergiversation of the times, and every passionless person congratulates himself for being the first to discover it -- and becomes, therefore, more clever. Weapons were freely given out during Revolutionary Ages . . . but in the present age everyone is given clever rules and calculators in order to aid one's thinking. If any generation had the diplomatic task of postponing action so that it might appear that something were about to happen, even though it would never happen, then one would have to say that our age has achieved as mightily as Revolutionary Ages. Someone should try an experiment with himself: he should forget everything he knows about the times and its relativity amplified by its familiarity, and then come into this age as if he were from another planet, and read some book, or some article in the newspaper: he will have this impression: "Something is going to happen tonight, or else something happened last night!"

>> No.3256253

>>3255377
Mostly because I wouldn't be able to make a living from it. Not that I can't write, but it's simply too unreliable for me at the moment. I actually have this story at 200ish pages on my drive that I'd like to finish and maybe publish one day.

>> No.3256254

Because I'm just letting all my random bullshit flow freely for now. I'm not ready to take the plunge on one single solid project yet... I mean I could, it just wont be as good as I want it to be. I'm only 21 though, so there's plenty of time. I'll start stressing about it if I don't got anything done by the time I'm like 30.

>> No.3256256

>>3255384
when the hell are you going to finish 'Fat and Proud'?

You son of a bitch.

>> No.3256260

>>3255681
Just like anything else in life, confidence is the key to success.

Sounds like you need to do some soul searching.

>> No.3256275

What is the rush?

>> No.3256289

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/

>> No.3256319

Why? Why don't you keep buckets of soil in your room and don't carry around an empty beer can? There's an infinite amount of things you'll never do, who cares.

>> No.3256325

>>3255377
B-but i did!
it's a good thing you didn't say "publish"

>> No.3256326

>>3256289
Did you write that, because if you did then well done.

>> No.3256331

>>3256171
my fucking sides!

>> No.3256332

>>3256256
>when the hell are you going to finish 'Fat and Proud'?

Winter 2013, my nigga. I got around 1000 words down.

>> No.3256375

>>3256326
Yes, I am David Wong.

My new movie is out soon guise!

>> No.3256381

>>3255704
Because they do jerk off to themselves.

>> No.3256382

>>3256332
I think a few people from /lit/ set out to write their own version of Fat and Proud the second that idea was posted. There must be ten books bound to hit the scene at around the same time. It's like a gold rush. There's money in it and we are racing like writers to get there. I know I am.

>mfw putting as much thought into it as I do my serious writing

>> No.3256384
File: 7 KB, 195x214, 64764487.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3256384

>>3255377
>Lit Rand graduated from University. A Ph.D in writing, any job I want, $300k starting. After working for a couple of secret organizations Lit cannot disclose, Lit retired at an early age to write fiction for young adults. Lit would like to thank you for purchasing the book. We /lit/ now.

>> No.3256388

But I have, almost. Only a few thousand words and a couple hundred hours of editing and rewriting left.

>> No.3256408

>>3256384
What are you... what are you doing?

>> No.3256444

>>3255384
>Ten Pynchons out of ten

>Like Joyce's Huckleberry Finnegan, and Christ's magnum opus The Bible before that, and King Arthur's Mort D'Arthur before that, and Plato's Finn's Wake even more before that, this book is the apex of literary fecundity. Like the Challenger shuttle, the narrative of Johnny plummets burning into the crevasses of your consciousness and there, shatters into a million fiery, ephemeral shards of literary greatness, exploding into life and scattering its morbid cargo among your neuron pathways. Tao Lin once said "We stand on the shoulders of giants", and Lit Rand is those giants. The Story Of Johhny cements Rand's inalienable position as one of the greats. His work will be forever be entombed in the annuls of the human hive-mind.

God bless America.

>by Tao Joyce

my fucking sides

>> No.3256685

>>3256444
fucking lol!

>> No.3256695
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3256695

serious question:

so to become a better writer all i have to do is write?

please help...

>> No.3256721

>>3256234

maybe the best thing i've ever read here

>> No.3256745

>tfw I don't even know what my goals are anymore

>> No.3256747

>>3256695
serious question:

Reese's Klondikes are a thing??

>> No.3256748

>>3255384
When the fuck did this happen? Are there threads on it?

>> No.3256751
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3256751

>>3256444
5/5 breddy gud

>> No.3256755

>>3255377
I haven't written a book, but I've published articles in encyclopedias and some poems in journals.

>> No.3256760

>>3256234

okay i just read the full essay by kierkegaard. hit me hard. lots to think about now (haha ;_;)

>> No.3256773

>>3256234
>written in 1846
What are we to make of it when something so seemingly topical extends its relevance over centuries? (Sorry about the unusual prose, I've been writing dialogue for a priest). Were those words ever irrelevant, even in those "Revolutionary Ages" (which, if this written now, could almost refer to the late 19th/early 20th century)?

>> No.3256791

>>3256773

when i was reading the essay, towards the end i couldn't help thinking about it in relation to the internet. and then i found this, which i'm reading atm and is sort of on that topic

http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~hdreyfus/html/paper_kierkegaard.html

why are so many people on the internet right now doing nothing?

>> No.3256846

>>3256791
thank you: I'll read it in the morning. I've stayed up far too long

>> No.3256884

>>3255377
I have, I've written three.

Now I just need to write a GOOD book

>> No.3256906
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3256906

>>3255384

>> No.3256975

I'm trying to hammer away at reading first. There's too many books that I haven't read and want to (that would be considered "Essential" or "Classics", like Anna Karenina, Ulysses, etc.).

I'm going to focus on short stories until then.

>> No.3256995
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3256995

>>3255626

>> No.3257225
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3257225

>>3255377
I have the strange notion that I can only truly set myself to writing once I have achieved certain conditions. These include health, solitude, income and a kind of clear and foreseeable minimalism and austerity. I need some sort of emptiness, a vacuum that naturally attracts substance in the form of words and creativity. I want to achieve that first, and from thereon I can work seriously, as I know those to be the optimal conditions for writing for me.

I'm aware that this might just be myself tricking myself to procrastinate, but I see no harm in this, since those conditions and that way of living are optimal for me whether I write or not. So that is what I strive for, regardless of artistic merit but at the same time also for its sake.

>> No.3257239

>>3257225
>tricking myself to procrastinate
that is exactly what you're doing

>> No.3257244

>>3257225
"As a writer, he had this peculiarity—that he did not write his pieces first rudely, and then correct them, but laboured every line as it arose in the train of composition; and he had a notion, not very peculiar, that he could not write but at certain times, or at happy moments—a fantastic foppery to which my kindness for a man of learning and virtue wishes him to have been superior." Johnson, on Gray.

>> No.3257261
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3257261

>>3257239
That is fine as well. I view my own literary ambitions as not much more than expression of what I want to express. As long as that need is not there, I don't feel like forcing myself to write because "something has to be written", because really, nothing has to be written. To some people this might be dangerous because they hold great goals and they may warn me that in this way I never will truly get work done and accomplish anything resembling success, but that is okay too.

>>3257244
Was Gray himself truely worse of for it though?

>> No.3257268

>>3257261
I would say so. I mean, he was clearly an extraordinarily talented writer, but he only produced one really first-rate poem. And I think it's reasonable to say that his work habits and his method of production probably contributed to that lack of productivity. So, I suppose, in terms of his personal happiness, he may have been better off, but as a writer, he certainly suffered from it.

>> No.3257298
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3257298

>>3257268
We'll never know though. Maybe that was all he had in him and the rest would have merely detracted from that work and he was aware of it's inferior quality. There's a lot to be said for a small oeuvre as well. If there's one thing I find painful it is artists doing too much for too long and showing a deterioration in their later work. I think Rimbaud's history is fascinating. Change literature before you're properly settled into adulthood and leave it behind forever. For some a small burst of excellence seems better than a steady path over the decades. Being silent when you might have something to say seems to me to be better than talking beyond your capacity for valuable contribution.

>> No.3257393
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3257393

>tfw two publishing houses are bidding for the rights to my debut novel

>> No.3257989

I wrote a book when I was about 14. It was so terrible I threw it away. Emailed it to a couple agents; just got their canned reply that has "sorry" in the first sentence. Not doing that shit again.

>> No.3257992

>>3257989
Reminds me of that time I tried to walk when I was one. Fell down. Never again.

>> No.3258030

>>3257393
What's sort of novel?

>> No.3258032

>>3258030
*what

And a bit of the plot please?

>> No.3258044

I've only recently (in the last year or so) freed myself from the shitty fantasy writer phase a lot of people go through. I can write a regular short story pretty well, but haven't figured out how to extend or build upon my conflicts enough for a novel.

>> No.3258074

>>3258044
Get them shits published then. Novels are overrated anyway.

>> No.3258080

>>3255377
I'm still researching. I don't even have a clear thesis yet. Also,4chan