/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3482671]

This thread was fun last night, so I'll try to revive something like it.

Post the first paragraph or stanza of the current project that you are working on.

[Anonymous No.3482678]

here is the first sentence:

the first few bullets barely grazed him

[Anonymous No.3482676]

OP:

This, my good fellow
Is old samizdat.
Part of ancient wish
I blest Eddaic,
Fir sirely you see.
The old burns ‘side me.
Of all who should know,
Your spout must hit now.

[Anonymous No.3482697]

There never were trees.
There never was a sky
or a ground to fall to.
There was only sunlight
that tanned your naked skin.

[Anonymous No.3482710]

The old man walked down the road and kicked up dust where his feet did not rise far enough above the ground. It was washed in a blossom of purple, a beam of sunrise-light filtered by cloud-shadows that faded across the bleak flatness. Lonely places. He stopped and looked on and shaded his eyes with a crag-like hand. There was nothing near him. Low gray hills in the distance. Dirt settled around him in a kind of nimbus. A short grunt and he moved on. Gears in motion, machine legs; he went on and on and on and didn’t stop even when the sun had risen and burned away the last wisps of clouds and its rays shone through him and into his soul; he persevered, moving, always moving, because he had mastered this place. The king of his own land, facing tempests of dust.

[Anonymous No.3482737]

>>3482678
Interesting but personally it's not something I would read more of. Definitely better than most beginning sentences.

[Anonymous No.3482739]

>>3482710
I came

[Anonymous No.3482752]

>>3482737
not into absurdist anti-hero novellas eh

[Anonymous No.3482757]

>>3482752
Not particularly.

[Anonymous No.3482765]

Side to side, corner to corner. Fuck. Nothing. The bitch must have dumped the lot. The open window shamelessly sucking in cold air was probably guilty of that. Maybe under the bed? Nope. Nothing. Even worse than nothing, something. Her clothes, not mine. False hope is life's worst purveyor of general cuntery.

I had to face it here and now. Like a man. My clothes were gone. And this fucking lunatic had flung them out the window without a care. As if my nakedness would somehow convince me to requite her neurotic love. Well if I ever felt the want sweep over me, she was there asleep, in her mutual nudity. But I wasn't climbing back in there, at least not again. Not for a third time this morning. No, I had a better plan, one that would take me back to the studio where I could climb in and out of bed with whomever I wished.

I stepped into what I assumed was her walk-in closet. Christ, what a size of a thing. Tights and jumpers and skinny jeans and polka-dot skirts that would make any man fear for the poor bastard who had to wait while she tried it on. Someone had exerted more effort than I in having his dick warmed in this girl's hole.

[Anonymous No.3482771]

>>3482765
>general cuntery

I lol'd.

This shit is great, man.

[Kekkafuza !/Swamig5Ow No.3482783]

>>3482765
>False hope is life's worst purveyor of general cuntery

[Anonymous No.3482793]

>>3482765
Ah, here it was. My ticket out of the frying pan and into the fire. A nice little green dress, with lace shoulders which tied up at the back. I slipped the dainty little thing over my naked body and set my sights on my next target: my face. Blessed by God I was with a beautiful button nose, sharp but without a curve, button-like in its softness yet crow-like in its sharpness when you faced it head on. And my chin, carved from the mortar Christ left behind in that tomb. I was a fine specimen, even if it was only myself was there to appreciate it, and appreciate it I did. But the mirror. My looks were diminished by the silly turquoise green of the dress. And as silly as it looked, I was still identifiable. The press would be around the studio. Hell, they were sniffing the perimeter of the place for any sign of my friend Vince's supposed celebrity relationship, which he'd fanning the flames of for some weeks. They'd make a show of me, with pictures and spreads to bate the band.

Jesus, all the utensils she had around this mirror, and still it only put a sort of sparkling sheen on the neon arrow pointing to her cunt whenever I saw her. It was better on me, I mused. Mascara, foundation, lipstick, the works. All went on my face in a beautiful pizza of female insecurity. I was done up to the nines, like Gok Wan on his wedding day. And pleased with my disguise, but also somewhat pleased with my appearance, I slipped out the window and raced up the long, winding street, where the studio beckoned.

[Anonymous No.3482805]

>>3482710
Do you accept critique?
>Dirt settled around him in a kind of nimbus
I found myself reading "kind" as in "gentle" and it completely ruined the flow.
It doesn't help that one doesn't process short words so 'of' can easily become 'and'.
Alas, that may just be me.

Also, unless dust is thematically important more over it feels a bit over-used.

Good luck with the work.

[Anonymous No.3482812]

Friendship built, trust constructed
Without friendship, some things couldn't be
Without trust, everything will be destructed
Without you, I wouldn't be.

[Anonymous No.3482816]

>>3482812
Give me gritique

[Anonymous No.3482818]

>>3482812
I like it apart from the second sentence. Seems a bit contrived to fit the meter.

[Anonymous No.3482820]

>>3482816
sux

[Anonymous No.3482853]

>>3482805
I love critique. Do you think it would be better if I said "sort of nimbus" instead? And I see what you mean about the dust...I'll try to dial it back a bit.

[Anonymous No.3482866]

>>3482853
Actually, if you really wanted to recognize the dust giving it a personal touch could work.
You can build a powerful metaphor out of it.
I was just more worried with using the actual word "dust".

And don't think I know better than you how to write, I'm just trying to help.

[Anonymous No.3482873]

>>3482793
This little cunt of a thing was a footsore. I had thrown on her strapped high heels before I popped out the window, and Jesus although they looked stylish at the time I was regretting it now. The fucking things were needle thin. I felt like a junkie who'd developed some method of shooting horse into his heels while going for his morning jog. But still, I got a few admiring glances going up the street towards them.

The studio. Security. Oh Jesus. The little fuckers in the press were swarming around like flies on shit. This was barrier number 1. I waited until a few particularly ugly leeches moved a few paces away before consulting with Ernie. He knew I was a bit of a loose cannon. I don't think he expected this, but when I tapped him on the shoulder and give him the whisper of my fate, he laughed hysterically, which I had actually urged him not to do I should add, and let me in. This caught a few nervous glances from the press, and before I knew it this manifested itself as genuine interest.

Oh God no. The first whisper came. "Is that her?", said some cunt done up like Humphrey Bogart in his trenchcoat. No. By the God's above it's not. I couldn't say it though. I could only smile at them. "It's her, isn't it! Kylie! Kylie!". This wasn't fair. They thought I was Vince's love interest evidently, or the one he'd been telling the press he was after. He'd never even met the girl, but it was a few column inches for him.

What could I do but smile at them endearingly? What else should I have done? I had no experience on the other side, knowing what women had to deal with. I could see old Humphrey Bogart hadn't lost his edge even on his return from the grave, the fucker had his eye right on my arsehole and was nearly staring right up into it. And then Vince came out. Comedy of errors.

[Anonymous No.3482884]

I walk down the street and the wind's pushing against me. Like a bully, holding me back from my destiny. I turn my back on it, eyes closed wishing and wanting for it to stop. I crinkle my face up when it cuts through my jacket, my shield, and bites my back. Like a bully.
This city's beautiful. In the summer it promises sex, vibrant life and the beauty of a mountain compacted into an island full of youth. But when the Earth rounds the sun and the clouds thicken, soaked with tears of white this city turns a sour grape indeed. The smiles and naked laughter of the people clothed by shields of wool and polyester; their faces turned downward to protect their faces from the bitter bullywind blowing down from the mountain into their faces, stabbing their cheeks with knives of ice and making them hate their Mother.
So I seclude myself, most winter days, in my apartment with my girlfriend. I love her. This love is selfish. I need her. I want to swallow her being. I want her soul. But she loves me just as well.

I walk into my apartment and she's there sitting on the futon, shades closed. The room was dark as were her eyes. She's looking at me, her face red and puffy looking. "We need to talk," she said. Of course.

I always think negatively. When I heard something like that I assume the worst. I've never given it up because I've never been wrong to assume the worst. I almost what she had to say coming. But knowing you're going to get stabbed doesn't do much to stop the actual stabbing.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Her words are shot of absinthe. They burn going down and makes your eyes water and make you wonder whether you're alive or not. They're poison. They're relayed in the echo chamber of your head, over and over in a second in a minute in an hour in a day that changed your life forever. That day you no longer felt happiness. Your mind stopped and it stopped for a long time. Caught in place by the sticky trap of heartbreak.

[Anonymous No.3482887]

>>3482866
No, I'm okay with anyone offering critique. And I do believe that's a good idea. I think I only used the word dust twice in that paragraph, hence why I substituted it with dirt in the middle, although that's not much difference. Thanks for the advice!

[Anonymous No.3482895]

>>3482884

Taking all critique btw

[Anonymous No.3482911]

>Working on a marching cadence for my ROTC Battalion

Some say Free-e-dom is free
But I tend to disagree
Some Say Free-dom is won
From the Barrel of a gun

Tell me why, tell me why
Does the soldier have to die?
Tell me who, tell me who
Sent the Soldier instead of you

[Anonymous No.3482919]

>>3482884
>Her words are shot of absinthe. They burn going down and makes your eyes water and make you wonder whether you're alive or not. They're poison. They're relayed in the echo chamber of your head, over and over in a second in a minute in an hour in a day that changed your life forever. That day you no longer felt happiness. Your mind stopped and it stopped for a long time. Caught in place by the sticky trap of heartbreak.

I like that part, although it should be "make your eyes water." Overall it's pretty decent.

[Anonymous No.3482933]

The worst thing in the universe, i've found, is boredom. Boredom is the national problem. Boredom is why so many things that never had to happen, happen anyways. And as we've gone on to solve the problems of the day, from the Jericho Peace Accords ending the various conflicts in the middle east through mutual cooperation, to the collapse of nations into national-unions, and those into the United Earth Cooperative, not to mention the development of the cures for cancer, HIV, and the eventual UEC projects to kill off all but a lab sample of numerous human ailments, such as malaria, ebola and influenza (While it does TECHNICALLY have the highest killcount of all human ailments, I'm convinced they did that one just because they found out that they could.) The creation of the successful fission/fusion reactor, which could take hydrogen, our most common element, and turn it into a sustainable, huge-level energy dynamo providing enough energy to sustain our entire economy on a planetary scale without so much as a single fossil fuel being involved, and even after that, the Zero Point Energy Generator, which caused a lot of people headaches trying to understand what the hell the creator was talking about until they saw it in action. We had free energy. We'd killed off illness. We improved ourselves, augmenting our flesh and blood with steel and circuits and nanorobots that kept ourselves healthier than we could have ever been, stronger than we thought possible, think better and move faster than any 21st century flesh and blood human could have ever been. We made our genes to order. We made ourselves infinitely adaptable. We made it so we could have anything we wanted for nothing, because energy could be made into whatever we needed, and energy was so abundant it might as well have been free. We had everything we could ever need. And we have never been so bored.

[Anonymous No.3482938]

>>3482873
The face on him. He was a pretty boy, with a mystical way with women of which he refused to expound on the details. He saw my face. Surely he saw my face? He had to have. Beneath three layers of makeup was a face who'd hauled him out of knife fights, turned him on his side when he vomited in his sleep, and drank himself to tears with him every night for the last three years. He just had to know.

"Hey Kylie. Glad to hear you.. came around."

And he put his hands on my hips. Christ almighty, God above and the satanic urges that bore them. I was stunned. Worse than Humphrey Bogart eyeing up my manpussy, this took the life and breath out of me. The eyes on him! He was just staring right in, oblivious. Looking with his dick, I thought to myself. I tried to shake my hips to move his hands from them, without outright going for them. The journalists, like the little vultures they were, circled in wait for the money shot. Well I wouldn't give it to them. But I couldn't cause a scene. A scene sold better than any amicable meeting between celebrities. A row was a goldmine, a scrap a windfall and an insult a small fortune. I couldn't upstage Vince here, he was my friend. My friend who had his hands on my arse now, I noticed.

"Why don't you go inside there babe, make yourself at home in the studio. I'll be in in a minute". Was this his legendary swagger? Just saying things and somehow trusting the deluded machinations of the female mind to turn them to reality? Well I would be it's latest victim, I decided. Easiest set of results. I could shock him with the truth later, now was my chance to traipse in and sit myself down with minimal fuss and no joy for the bastarding reporters.

Or so I thought.

[Anonymous No.3482941]

>>3482938
This victory translated to my body language, and galvanised with the positive response he did the unthinkable. Lips puckered out, tongue moist, hands now circling my ringpiece. He wouldn't. He just wasn't going to. I just wasn't going to! But I couldn't upstage him.. we'd kissed before. For dares for girls amusement, for drunken brotherhood, for happiness and sorrow that we lived in together. But never as crossdressing media items.

And by Jesus, we did kiss. I leaned forward and opened my mouth slightly, and forced him out within the five second mark. I ran in the door without a sound. Slammed it behind me, drowning out the sound of camera shutters clicking.

I don't think I'll ever mention this to him.

[Anonymous No.3482953]

>>3482941
Anyone want to critique that little short story I threw together?

[Anonymous No.3482956]

>>3482953
That was awesome.

[Anonymous No.3482970]

>>3482956
Thanks bud.

[Anonymous No.3482975]

This thread makes me feel bad for only doing real paragraphs on the second draft.

[Anonymous No.3482998]

All his heart a roil with gnashing grief the giant-king came, club in hand, to savage the lands of men and man. Eoten, the great and wyrdly-beast, was great for leaps and bounding, pushing across the holds of men with such thunderous speed he shivered the earth. If he swung his trunk fro he swung his trunk forth and he swung the gait of his sprint with much great and purposed wrath so that it was said by those who had not seen him pass that the hills had all been harrowed by a mighty, angry flood; and those who had seen him are all supposed to have said the same. Thus is how the giant-king came against the halls of the Athelings and crashed himself down upon them.

[Anonymous No.3483081]

"CILLA! GET ME ANOTHER CADILLAC!", screeched Elvis as he writhed on the floor, urine gathering in a small puddle at his naval and froth bubbling around his lips.

[Anonymous No.3483092]

>>3483081
wot

[Anonymous No.3483099]

>>3482941
Hahaha this was great

[Anonymous No.3483106]

I'm writing a short story about a cowardly man who is ostracised and eventually killed by his neighbours in ireland during all the unrest of the 1800s

'The perfect man makes more trouble than he is worth. At least, so it was for every local hero Jack Torrance came to know. As for Jack, well, he was a self-professed coward, shying away from any conflict and accepting all and any forceful regime changes to his beloved Ireland with shameful readiness. For this reason his neighbours and various acquaintances sought to distance themselves from him; they had their suspicions. Perhaps he was in league with the government; a possible undercover detective. Whatever he was they weren’t the least in favour of his living among them. '

wrote this just now to be honest

[Anonymous No.3483111]

>>3483106
>Jack Torrance

Shining much? you Irish?

[Anonymous No.3483120]

>>3483111
Yeah its just a placeholder name cause I like the sound of it.

I'm not even irish lol, my research is based on the biography of W.B. Yeats

[Anonymous No.3483151]

>>3483120
fair enough. you can easily do the revolution well. great period in our history.

[Anonymous No.3483156]

>>3483151
Seems like it would be a fun thing to tackle, I'm an English bastard though.

[Anonymous No.3483167]

I didn't see the knife until it was almost too late.
I had had a letter from a guy i hadn't heard from in seven years, and It was bringing things back into my mind; cuasing old drowned bodies to rise out of the depths of my fictional past and turn their eyes towards me and grin before sinking back into oblivion. It had me off my game and it almost killed me.
Where Curtis got him a knife I don't know. Paid for it in blowjobs or smuggled pills or favors he was never going to get to deliver maybe. A skinny, meth-crawling AN wannabe with Left arm full of House Tats and a right hand full of coal-black electric taped spring-steel jailhouse murder, right there and ready for me.
He came up fast as I stepped past the corner and I thought he was about to throw something on me and run, which would have been like him. But he was too close, reaching out toward my ribs with that jittery eaarnestness you get from tweakers.
And he was not close enough, in a way. Not close unough to grapple and misdirect while the blade found my guts.
So I made three mistakes in a row and survived:

[Anonymous No.3483172]

>>3483167
The first was letting my attention drift when I wasn't on home ground with my back to a wall. The second was not considering the possibility of Curtis having a knife and the balls to try anything with it. The thrid was assuming he was a decoy, and that the real threat was elsewhere.
The first two almost cost me my life, but the last one cost Blaine Curtis his: I got the knife hand coming at me and rolled around it, letting him carry himself forward, past me towards the far wall. Then, when his arm straightened out and the elbow locked I brought my foot up and kicked the elbow while holding onto the wrist of the hand that held the knife. he shrieked like a scratched record when the elbow broke and I could have left it there.
But I couldn't believe he was alone so I figured I'd have somebody else after me in seconds. so I took the knife as his spastic fingers dropped it and drove it up through the bottom of his adams apple as he fell. Then I flat-backed against the wall and waited.

[Anonymous No.3483173]

>>3483167
if you're writing a slightly trashy thriller i'm sure you'll find a market for that, but its not exactly great writing. A bit edgy.

[Anonymous No.3483178]

>>3483172
Curtis was busy drowning in blood and doing a roll-walk on the grey concrete and somehwere down below I could hear the trustees mustering for their roll call and getting their duty sheets. Nobody else was anywhere. just me in the hall and dying Curtis. But I had blood all over me and knife in my hand so what could I do? I yelled for help and tried to keep The Aryan pinhead alive till somebody else showed up for him to die on. The knife went under his shirt where the blood could clean it maybe. They didn't buy it of course, but they couldn't prove anything either, and maybe word got passed that Curtis was after me--would have been nice if it had been passed to me, but there you go--and I got an extra six months tacked onto the end. Six months that maybe changed a whole hell of alot. But of this you shall hear

[Anonymous No.3483270]

I woke up to find a dead man lying on my porch- this is not an ordinary circumstance for me.

[Anonymous No.3483297]

>>3483270
how meursault of you ;)

[Anonymous No.3483301]

>>3483270
last clause redundant?

[Anonymous No.3484526]

It’s just after dawn. The light from the window is already warm and foreboding. It’s going to be a long, hot, miserable fuckin’ day - full of weird work and strange angles. My own personal summer of love, with all its prose and promise, is barely a memory now. The glass is shattered. Those moments…the still-frames that reflect something too perfect to speak of scattered in the past. They show up here and there – in between the static and the noise. Apparently, Sammy Kershaw is headlining the festivities at the annual 4th of July celebration. And though I probably would never lend a hand to such a conspiracy, I have to admit, it would be funny if ol’ Sammy choked on a plug of Levi Garrett and dropped dead right there on the fuckin’ stage. That would be something worthy of recreational explosives.

[Anonymous No.3484540]

>>3484526
>present tense

[captain lower case !!QnLsYtrr3tn No.3484559]

>>3483301
not if then he's like, usually it's dead men who find me on the porch! i'm a board at transylspookyville college, you see, and my room mate is a vampire! he's a stay-in kind of guy, and i'm a party-party-party-party kind of guy: so, i sometimes rock up at around 3am, can't get my way in (maybe i've lost my keys, or i've got my keys right in my hand but it's all just getting too complicated; i don't know), and i take my snooze right there on the doormat instead - i tell ya, given how much old vlad snores, it's about as comfortable. i can't tell you how many times that guy stops breathing at night (zero: he never starts!).

[Anonymous No.3484563]

>>3484540
What do you have against present tense?

[Anonymous No.3484582]

"Something fresh, something new," he breathes, licking his lips. "Somewhere to start something great," he mumbles feeling the creativity well up inside him like a hot spring. He dug through his piles and piles of partially filled notebooks tainted with failed creations, writers block, and numerous other shortcomings. "Just one tablet, something free of all my failures," he begs pleadingly, picking up the last notebook in the bottom drawer of his desk. "Come on..." he says, flipping it open, finding a pitiful story he had once begun about a WWII pilot.
The prologue to the book I'm writing... The actual first paragraph of the book begins with dialogue so I'll just throw out a few lines.
""Johnathan Teitley," I said smiling, "so nice to meet you."
The man grasped my extended hand and gave it a firm shake, returning my smile. "Mr. Teitley, it's really an honor to meet a man as distinguished as yourself; what you've achieved at such a young age! A bestseller at 23? You'd be the envy of Steinbeck, god rest his soul."

[Anonymous No.3484589]

"That's what you get for breathing in when you knew you weren't supposed to, numb cunt," the leather of his boots growled softly against the glass as he turned to face what was left of the window. "God's dead and we're the bacteria slowly breaking down what's left. Don't think the shit you pulled can change any of that."

[Anonymous No.3484597]

>tfw not native English & cannot contribute

[Anonymous No.3484622]

Trevor pulls the sheets off his naked body and rolls out of bed. Standing with his hands raised behind his head and cock erect, he looks out the window and exclaims The Sky is Beautiful Today!

[Anonymous No.3484628]

>>3482671
>Post the first paragraph or stanza of the current project that you are working on.
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
try {
} catch(std::exception& e) {
return 1;
}
return 0;
}

[Anonymous No.3484683]

“Hello. Name?”
“Fredrick Levy,” said the man in a collared, long sleeve shirt. He adjusted the slack in his tie. He wanted to look as neat as possible. This was the first date he has had in a while. The day before, he paid eight dollars for a much-needed haircut. The tie he is wearing is brand new. He wreaked of cologne because he knew no better. He had showered twice before the date, just to make sure he wasn't smelly. All of this was good for him, even if he saw it as a major break in his routine. The research he is currently conducting at the university he attends possessed him: mind, body and soul. Fredrick would sometimes forget to eat, and he was just as inattentive towards his hygiene. The man now standing in a four star restaurant waiting to be seated looked nothing like the man three days ago in a lab.

[Anonymous No.3484684]

The city was on an island off the coast. It was an island made from a great round stone drawn from the bottom of the sea and held up by strange and perilous magic. It is guessed that many thousands of years ago an order of wizards raised it and built upon this place the capital of Hiskland.