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/lit/ - Literature

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7132112 No.7132112 [Reply] [Original]

Who here /smart but lazy/? I literally cannot get any writing done but everything I've written so far has been of masterpiece status.

>> No.7132117
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7132117

>think about novel in head
>perfectly structured masterpiece with the most psychoilogically complex characters put through the most complex and unconventional plot exploring the deepest themes of the human condition
>try to actually write novel
>give up after two poorly written paragraphs


how to writers do it?

>> No.7132118

>>7132112
>everything I've written so far has been of masterpiece status.
So... you wrote nothing at all?

>> No.7132125

>>7132112
>but everything I've written so far has been of masterpiece status.


> /smart but lazy/
> capable of writing well without reading hours a day and doing exceptionally close reading to the point of physical exhaustion

More importantly

> frog posting

Nothing you wrote or will write is of masterpiece status.

>> No.7132126

Everyone thinks they're smart, but you can't know for sure how capable you are if you don't apply yourself.

>> No.7132127

Anyone who thinks they are a good writer but doesn't actually write is most likely a shitty writer. You need to work to unlock your potential, good for nothing frogposter.

>> No.7132131

>>7132117

By not stopping after they run into their own hurdles of inadequacy.

>> No.7132150

If one believes and feels that life is important, one has a delusional view of the reality of the life

If one does not believe and feel that life is important, one will not have the motivation to write a book

Ergo well written books on the true realities of the human condition are an impossibility

>> No.7132196

>>7132112
>smart but lazy

Always pure bullshit. You're mediocre and scared to have it proven.

>> No.7132211

>>7132196
Spectral phantasms bolt across his periphery, from one side of the window’s glass to the next. In a Crock-Pot nearby his not-girlfriend cooks gumbo. The scent is powerful. The amount of salt she puts in the concoction is artery-clogging. Midway through the process of cooking, the lid to the Crock-Pot is off and she has the salt shaker set at an 180° angle to let pour the sodium, the diminutive crystals with their collective strength flooding what was a potentially decent dish. He cringes inside watching her do this. The phantasms continue, flitting. He knows that this real because his judgment is valid, and he knows that his judgment is valid because he is logically grounded in reality.

But the sleep deprivation has been unrelenting. He finds himself laying down in bed only to become completely awake. There are many possible reasons for this.

Reason #1: He is afraid of the advent of death following the seemingly-innocent-enough closing of his eyes. He considers the fact that What if he was slowly dying and was at this point in time, right now, a Walking Corpse waiting to find his Coffin, and then to close his eyes, lace his fingers Crypt Keeper-style about his chest and to say “night-night” and for the lights to diminish immediately and the thoughts like electrons to lose that positive charge absolutely totally utterly.

Reason #2: There’s something wrong in his neurological framework. Like, it doesn’t produce melatonin efficiently enough to grant sleep. (But this, he has learned, must be an impossibility, at least after That One Time when he took six 3mg small white tablets of Melatonin, to replace what he thought was a lack of melatonin, and was subsequently plagued with a numb, unfeelable face, and he couldn’t speak, and this caused a fiasco among his superiors as he couldn’t bag the sale of a single Kirby vacuum cleaner that day, so they threatened to take away his holiday if he didn’t answer in 5, 4, 3, 2 … and were assuaged (productivity-wise) when they saw the beginnings of a trickle of rabiesesque drool bubbling down his bottom lip, and quickly called the paramedics before he collapsed, because they didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of Workers’ Comp. So that was a no-no.)

Reason #3: He has a youthful vivacity of spirit that is only kindled by the trampoline-like qualities of a mattress … But probably not.

>> No.7132215
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7132215

>tfw dumb and lazy

>> No.7132217

>>7132112
>smart but lazy

My teachers always said that to me, now i put price tags at the local supermarket, i think they were bullshiting me

>> No.7132275

I don't know why normies get so butthurt about this meme.

>> No.7132409

>>7132215
top kek m8

>> No.7132419

>>7132112
You're not lazy. You stopped because you realized how inadequate you are as a writer. If you were truly content with what you wrote then you would continue.

>> No.7132433

>>7132211
decent imitation of styles of writing that became outmoded after 9/11. considering the origin texts were never masterpieces (thus allowing them to become outmoded), this is not close to masterpiece level

>> No.7132439

>>7132211
Please tell me you're fucking joking

>> No.7132449

>>7132211

>present tense

Fix that

>> No.7132455

>>7132211
lying down*

>> No.7132460

>>7132211
>youthful vivacity of spirit
>180° angle
redundant.

I'm not sure if you meant to say electrons are positive, but they're not.

>> No.7132464

>>7132460
Yeah that was a mistake. Good catch.

>> No.7132467

>>7132112
Not me.

I'm dumb and lazy.

>> No.7132468

>>7132211
Like I said, mediocre.

>> No.7132504

>>7132433
What style is "post-9/11 literature"? Hemingway?

>>7132449
no

>> No.7132793

>>7132468
Who are you?

>> No.7132805

I have 15 pages of my short story/novella-ish thing, but I find it hard to get into the headspace to write well. I've been trying to force myself an hour every night for editing, but it's only been twice that I've gotten these weird bursts of inspiration where I feel completely submerged in the story. Nothing to do with laziness for me really. It's something very abstract and odd, but most days my writing feels completely alien to me, like someone else wrote it, and then occasionally I'm back on the story's wavelength and I feel like I'll never fall off it again.

>> No.7132863

>>7132504
>posting your work for anons on 4chan to critique
surely you didn't think this was a good idea? If you want solid, thought out criticism you should find peers/teachers who would be willing to look over your material or join an online writing community. You'll get better feedback AND more respect.

>> No.7132966

>>7132863
Wrote it for the sole purpose of posting it on /lit/. I would never post any of my legitimate writings here.

>> No.7132999

>>7132211
>present tense
huh

hm

wow

>> No.7133028

there is no such thing as a smart person, youre just lazy

>> No.7133038

>>7132131
This

>> No.7133255

Y'all should try dictating your prose to the computer tbh la fam.

>> No.7133735

>tfw somehow got published
>publisher interested in a second book
>can't even sit down to right
>tell myself it's because i'm lazy
>im actually just afraid I won't have any thing to say anymore

>> No.7133742

>Intelligent, Nihilistic and with a Wicked Sense of Humor
Does this describe you?

>> No.7133764

>>7132112
Who here /dumb and lazy/?

>> No.7133765

>>7132211
Pretentious shit tbh fam

>> No.7133784

>>7132211
>salt clogging arteries
>saying Crock-Pot, not slow cooker
>180 degree angle
>salt is now sodium

>making logical assumptions with no literal basis
>"many possible reasons", actually just 3
>electrons losing positive charges
>starting a sentence with "like"
>That One Time

3/10 is the best I can do

>> No.7133785

>>7133735
>sit down to right

>> No.7133797

>>7132211
Although you've set yourself up for criticism here, it is still good, just force yourself into a daily routine and learn to discipline yourself, no one starts out great, they just get a little better every day they apply themselves consistently.

>> No.7133800
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7133800

>>7133797
>it is still good

are you the kind of person who posts enthusiastic praise to every entry on r/writingprompts?

>> No.7133810

>>7133800
Pretty much fam

>> No.7133876

>>7132112
>/smart but lazy/
pseudointellectual detected

this is the most common excuse people from my uni have for being shit and having low grades

>calling yourself smart

this fucking triggers me so much

>> No.7133882

>>7132211
People here on /lit/ don't seem to understand that the best writing is concise, not incredibly convoluted and complex.

>> No.7133886
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7133886

>>7133876
I don't go around telling people I'm smart, but I was a national merit scholar and published a biology paper as the second author when I was in high school. It's possible for a very capable person to get lazy. Trust me.

>> No.7133904

>>7133882

I know right, Charles Dickens is such a hack. Same goes for Tolstoy.

Complex writing can be fine to. Minimalism isn't the end-all be-all of genius.

>> No.7133913

>>7132112

I'm an athlete but lazy. Means I've become fat and uncoordinated. But I'm still an athlete under the fat.

>> No.7133923

>>7132211

>purple prose: the post

It's shit. Pure shit. It's self masterbating nonsense that no one will read beyond the second sentence. This better be you fucking with us, because if you think this is good, you'll never make it in anything in life

>> No.7133926

This meme is the worst one out there. It is people who are anything but smart telling themselves that they are smart *if* only they got around to do something that they wanted to do and prove how smart they are after all. No, you aren't smart, nor you are a genius, or genius to come. Genius is hard work, you are a small fish compared to him.

>> No.7133931

>>7133923
>masterbating

>> No.7133946

>>7132211
Did you literally just sit there with a thesaurus for a good few hours and picked whichever word that tickled your fancy?

>> No.7133948

>>7133931

>get critcized
>retort by pointing out spelling errors

Yep, you're the perfect example of a mediocre mind

>> No.7133971

Everyone here is smart and lazy. Someone with direction would never have learned how to post here. The young guys justify their presence as learning stuff or getting recommendations. But if you're working on your education this isn't the place to be. Its a time sap. Bye, I'm off to save the polar bears from extinction.

>> No.7133985

>>7133923

Why is everyone hating so much on purple prose? Minimalism is a trend, not a truth. Plenty of purple prose throughout the ages has been magnificent.

Don't be a mindless drone just going with the flow. Dismissing purple prose for no merit other than it being wordy is plebby as fuck.

>> No.7134005

>>7132211
Dude or Dudette,

Lemme help you. Seriously. Look. I stopped reading here because:
>electrons to lose that positive charge absolutely totally utterly

ELECTRONS DO NOT HAVE POSITIVE CHARGE.- Just wrong.
TOTALLY UTTERLY - kind of tautological.

>his not-girlfriend
That is just lifted from a Porno video. Sorry.

> He cringes inside
I cringe inside at this cliche.

Besides that, good attempt but kind of unoriginal prose and a little bland. Feels like you ain't feelin' it when you write. Needs more salt ;)

Feel your lines and words, bro.

>> No.7134012

>>7133985
this is a thoroughly entry level example, a typical beginner's mistake of confusing vocabulary with voice. if the op keeps writing, he'll look back on this with regret.

>> No.7134014

>>7132112
If you were smart you'd be smart enough to stop being lazy.

>>7133971
>not letting them die off
RULES OF NATURE

>> No.7134016
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7134016

>>7133735
>sitting down to right
fucking leftists

>> No.7134017

>>7134012

Probably, yeah. But what about purple prose in general? Because that does seem to generate a lot of hate.

>> No.7134022

>>7132211
To me it has a very generic young writer snark like you're trying to bridge the gap between Vonnegut and Wallace but it's not awful. If you have interesting material your prose could support it.

>> No.7134025

>>7132211
>the scent is powerful
Really? I usually don't think of Gumbo as a powerful scent. Why would you write so much about tipping in salt? It's just salt. This doesn't teach us anything about the characters. So what, the guy hates salt? What the fuck does this contribute to the plot?

>> No.7134063

>>7132112
>>7132211
you're not a genius, sorry. your prose is very artificial. if you practice, you will improve.

>> No.7134259

>>7132211
At least it's not pokemon fan fiction.

>> No.7135358

>>7132112
Could someone critique my piece? I've just left school and I'm am very lazy but I would never say I've even written shades of a masterpiece. I want people to find flaws in everything I write, and I want to have the gusto to keep solving them.
-------

Sidney Baker sat shakily in the dark, carefully removing his swastika and laying down a grass-stained peacoat before crying briefly, nervously, and then counting his buttons. He had decided last month that he was not depressed but long talks on the veranda, Mediterranean styled houses with white bubbled walls textured like cave, cliff falls and sea salt air, sashaying footsteps of soft skinned girls, dry ground, unlit pools, forest fires, the chattering of insects: all of it was a slow irritant to his weak nerves.

In the garden however, there was enough drink and solitude to move into a silent blur of a place, a thin embryo to escape back to. Outside, friends and others would be fucking the night to a husked memory but Sidney -- a boy of twenty-two years and fifteen buttons -- had smuggled himself past dimlit furniture to cry alone here. Teetering in quiet mania, he flashed between sanity and bright dreams of Egyptian Airlines, images of stuck clouds and tinfoiled halal meat behind purple drapes and cramped seats making rude arrivals on his thoughts, throwing him horribly. I miss Linda, Sidney was and should not be thinking, I miss all of them, and instead, I’m thinking of Cairo. He fingered each button violently while he recounted, I miss Linda, Oh, I miss the fucking bitch and here I am: drunk, outside, and thinking of Cairo! Five buttons later and Sidney was wailing now, the silence killed, screaming out his secrets louder than the music behind him, uncaring to all of it, beyond the coming of upset crowds, moving back to dusty Egypt, floating; in the lonely freedom of a distant Spanish garden, he sat shakily, remembering his news, necromancing away in the pitch black.

>> No.7135369

>>7135358
>I'm am
not a good start, oops.

It's a fancy dress party and I just wanted to practice scene description and switching between them

>> No.7135436

>>7133946
Not my fault you have the lexicon of a fifth grader.

>> No.7135444

>>7135436
that's not his point. your prose sounds fake and forced.

>> No.7135472

>>7135444
Nice trips, but you need to clarify if you want me to take you seriously.

>> No.7135474

>>7135472
He's calling your work shit because it doesn't feel natural, it feels like a very concentrated effort to appear smart and intellectual without any emotional substance.

>> No.7135491

>>7135472
yes, this >>7135474
and your voice is academic, unsuited to the character and story. it distances us from the protagonist instead of creating empathy

>> No.7135523

>>7132112

You are no longer smart.

You were smart in high-school or relative to the people in your low to mid level college a few years ago.

You banked on what intelligence you could develop passively, by listening in class, by half-assing the homework.

Everyone who is smart now is as smart, or was smarter, than you were than, and they've also worked, giving themselves skills and background you now don't have.

It's also very likely your "masterpiece status" works are only good to your inexperienced sense. There are hundreds of uneducated lay-people who send asinine philosophy papers into journals. There are thousands of writers who do the same (about 1% of all material is published.)

Start building working habits now or you will die a deluded obscurity, a Mr. Causbon, an Ignatius.

>> No.7135553

>>7133904
Dickens and Tolstoy have very clear writing with a lot of syntactic complexity. Most people on /lit/ just have the complexity.

>> No.7135568

>>7135436
This isn't Victorian England; there is something to be said for the economy of language. You can say just as much, if not more, by making careful use of simpler words. Poise is not flamboyant; your writing needs more balance, not syllables.

>> No.7135583

>>7132217
No, they were right. You were too lazy to do any better.

>> No.7135606

>>7135523
>You are no longer smart.
>You were smart in high-school or relative to the people in your low to mid level college a few years ago.

>> No.7135678
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7135678

>>7132112
Actively ruining my own life just to feel alive, I don't know if this is madness, but I'm cutting ties and breaking every morale rule just to see if there's any excitement.

>> No.7135693

>>7135678
Calm down and take some shrooms tbh. Hopefully you won't have to destroy everything good in your life before you find a reason to live.

>> No.7135696

>>7135678
I wanna do this but I'm too much of a coward.

>> No.7135700

>>7135606

If you measure yourself relative to your peers and relative to people of your age and what they are capable of, you become stupid very rapidly if you don't work. Intelligence isn't just mental quickness, it's that quickness applied to knowledge and that knowledge and that quickness applied to some end. You might have more potential than a 25 year old novelist, but if you've written nothing but stubbed out novel beginnings by 30 you are still nothing compared to him. Quickness is a tool. If you just value quickness you are looking for easy self esteem. The work is what matters.

>> No.7135704

>>7135700
I was agreeing with you but forgot to include the part where I say so.

>> No.7135711

>>7135696
You'll transcend for a moment in the action of things, then you become a sober version of yourself and you reflect on everything, good or bad.

I have no advice.

>>7135693
Just another step, my past self is anti-drug and part of me still is, I'm extremely conservative and such a right wing hack, I chase those dreams and even play the stock market and bust my ass at work and are rewarded so.

Done MDMA, and snorted Heroin, both good but it didn't answer any questions.

>> No.7135727

Want to get better OP? Take off that pretentious mental cap of yours and realize that in the grand scheme of things, you are utter shit and your writing reflects on it. Stemming from lack of life experience to the fact that you save pictures of frogs on your computer. You are utterly incapable of writing a masterpiece because you exude this pathetic self loathing and waste your time dwelling upon trivialities that don’t matter.

>> No.7135738

Intelligence without discipline is a parlor trick.

>> No.7135746

>>7135711
Shrooms aren't something you get hooked on, and if you only take an eighth you're not going to break with reality. They don't answer questions on their own but the effects are similar to what a highly skilled meditator can achieve as far as altered and potentially productive mind states.

>> No.7135787

>>7135746
Getting hooked isn't a deterrent, how do you suggest consuming them? What else can you say about them?

>> No.7135816
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7135816

>>7135746
>>7135787
no. an eighth can be a helluva lot depending on what you get

>> No.7135848

>>7135568
gb2hemingway

>> No.7135885

>>7135711
MDMA is a weird fucking drug.

I enjoy acid, but I find MDMA can vary between amazing and weirdly spooky, you social empathy gets elevated to near paranormal heights. I remember just passing out with some friends after only half a g. each really, and all of us would randomly speak aloud every few minutes, hallucinating five different conversations.

>> No.7135908

>>7133946
I love hemingway, and generally agree with this statement. However, I see nothing in that anon's post that warrants this response.

>> No.7135909

>>7135787
Some people hate the taste, but I rather like it and would just eat them straight. If you find it's intolerable, grind them and mix with OJ.

For me it was just an interesting few hours of self examination and appreciation for some things in my life I had taken for granted, plus the sensation that things were breathing, but it was obviously due to the shrooms and not scary. No dragons in the sky or shit like that. I think most people who have scary experiences do something dumb like smoke weed or drink along with it.

I did it alone and it was fine but most suggest going somewhere out in nature and/or doing it with good friends.

>> No.7135928

>>7135909
Good drawn out explanation and suggestion(s), thanks for the advice. As a /pol/ and /r9k/ traveller you've opened some doors for me, thanks anon.

>> No.7135943

>>7135909
I did acid for the first time after not sleeping for fifty hours. I was rolling on a few pills and stayed up through a valium as well, but had a lovely introspective experience.

Would I like shrooms, could I comfortably handle a high dose? I've tried few psychedelics but always enjoyed the weird adventures.

>> No.7135965
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7135965

>>7132112
Intelligent people aren't lazy

>> No.7135981

>>7135909
bad trips are the result of bad mental set and/or bad setting, or taking too much for your ability to handle.

>> No.7135985

>>7135943
I dunno man. They effect everyone differently but it probably wasn't smart to mix anything with acid.

A lot of people who've done both (I haven't personally) say that shrooms are more pleasant as far as the mental effects, but there's a little initial stomach discomfort to get past with shrooms that I don't think is common with acid. The stomach thing didn't really get me.

>> No.7135988
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7135988

taking 115ug of acid tonight

any advice?

>> No.7136006

>>7135988
have your favorite music ready at hand

>> No.7136035

>>7135988
don't

>> No.7136044

>>7135981
I know some people who've done peyote in the desert and they say that all the horror stories are from Mexican teenagers and Brits (of course) who insist on drinking along with the peyote despite the guide's warnings.

>> No.7136062

>>7135985
Thanks for the advice anon.
>>7135988
/s4s/ is a funny place to be on acid.

>> No.7136068

>>7135988
Watch End of Evangelion and Space Dandy doesn't matter if you've already seen them

>> No.7136073

>>7136068
Eva sounds terrifying on acid.

>> No.7136106

>>7136044
i'd put that under the umbrella of set and setting. psychedelics aren't a party drug. getting dumb on alcohol is the opposite of what you're supposed to do with hallucinogens. i have a hard time talking to drunks when i'm tripping.

>> No.7136143

>>7132211
So you're 13. Just remember, you don't have to impress anyone. People aren't against each other, they are for themselves.

So be for yourself and write something you'd love to read.

Unless that's sadly pretentious and meaninglessly imitative shit. Preteen shit.

>> No.7136199

>>7136143
>implying

>> No.7136221

>>7136199
Yes.

>> No.7136447

>>7136221
>implying you are capable of reading

>> No.7136460

>>7136447
>implying you are capable of writing

>> No.7136472

>>7136073
It is. I watched it by myself the first time I tripped on two tabs. I was 17 and put my blanket over my head and before I knew it, two hours had passed and I was covered entirely in sweat and seriously unsure about things.

I can still remember Shinji's screaming face when he sees Asuka

It was still a beautiful movie

>> No.7136476

>>7136460
Oh snap nigguh.

>> No.7136483

>>7136460
savage

>> No.7136704

>>7132211
You should have written Pokemon fan fiction.

>> No.7136851

>>7136704
It's more on /lit/'s caliber.

>> No.7137049

>>7132112
do not think yourself smart—do smart things, or do not.

>> No.7137213

>>7132211

How would the salt clog arteries... Cholesterol clogs arteries. Sodium is excreted by the kidneys. Salt causes hypertension.

Also this: "He knows that this real because his judgment is valid, and he knows that his judgment is valid because he is logically grounded in reality.", is circular.

Do you intend your character to sound schizophrenic or are you yourself that clueless.?

>> No.7137293

>>7137213
I fail to see how either of your criticisms relate to schizophrenia in any way, shape, or form. Perhaps you're projecting?

Also, try reading the sentence a few more times. It isn't circular at all.

>> No.7137352
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7137352

Anyone here is /smart and disciplined/? Teach me your ways. I want to learn how to work hard. My father is a slob; all he taught me is to sit in the front of the tv and let my neurons fall asleep.

I'm 24 btw. Is it too late for me? How do I develop a strong work ethic?

>> No.7137370

>>7132211
I don't really understand what this piece is trying to do, aside from being a gigantic ball of fluff dressed up as substance. Do you really need all this purple prose to say that some sleep-deprived idiot is putting too much salt on his gal-pal's dish because it's four in the morning and he's lost control of his life? And did you really need to pad it out to double length with these contrived reasons for his insomnia when it's completely unnecessary?

>> No.7137375

>>7132117
Drink hard liquor. Like Hemingway said write drunk edit sober. For one it lubricates the old brain gears and limbers the fingers. allowing the subconscious to flow more freely into the work, and for two, it provides a cogitative dissonance allowing you to be like well I made these mistakes while I was drunk so that's why I have to fix them now. Remember the first draft is just you telling yourself the story, the rest of the drafts are how you make it presentable.

>> No.7137378

>>7137352
>How do I develop a strong work ethic?
Get a fedora collection and pray to a shrine to Applejack.

>> No.7137380

>>7137352
Routine.

>> No.7137384

>>7134017
purple prose is categorically bad. if it's not bad, it's just descriptive, not purple.

>> No.7137409

>>7137384
It should be common sense by now that throwing in a load of advanced vocabulary for its own sake without regard for flow, balance, or variety, is infantile and a bad idea. Very amateur. It's really strange how many people will put that tripe on a piece of paper and expect it to make people believe they're intelligent.

>> No.7137473

>>7135358
>>7135369

Much better than op's. Loved the alliteration in the first paragraph; it reflects pretty well how all that stuff put together affects Sidney's nerves. I'm not sure if that's what the "s" sound, which is the most prevalent, generally conveys. I always thought the "s" was soothing. Or does it reflect his crying? Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. Still, it's good.But keep it going. Noice images.

>> No.7137621

>>7133028
Whatever makes you feel better, buddy.

>> No.7138254

>>7132211
Laying down for the first time in many nights, he found himself unable to sleep. He could still taste the gumbo on his breath. It had been over-salted and clumsily prepared.

He couldn't sleep. His fatigue was palpable, but morning stood at a distance. What if he were to die tonight? What if he was crazy? Maybe he just had more energy than he thought. Probably not. On the edge of his vision, unknown dancers, performing endlessly.


This isn't even good, but do you see how fucking bloated your passage is?

>> No.7139793

>>7132150
the premises are valid
but is the conclusion true?

>> No.7139974

>>7138254
Way to completely saturate my passage with mediocrity.

>> No.7140012

>>7138254
awful

>> No.7140143

>>7135711
Nothing will ever answer your questions bro. Learn to live with it before you do something you cant take back

>> No.7140168

>>7137352
>My father is a slob; all he taught me is to sit in the front of the tv and let my neurons fall asleep.
Iktfb. Im slowly learning to let go of my resentment

>> No.7140361

>>7133913
That's not a valid comparison fitness is palpable and intelligence is not. Intelligence is not an accumulation of intellectual accomplishments though intellectual accomplishments are only possible with intelligence.

>> No.7140831

>>7135553
Faulkner + Joyce > Dickens + Tolstoy

>> No.7141288

>>7132211
you put effort into this, but it's very bad. you've made a beginner's mistake: confusing eloquence with verbosity. Don't just use the biggest or most obscure word you can think of, use the word that most accurately fits the idea. also, even if you're only writing prose, there needs to have a "rhythmic" element. try reading your writing out loud. if it sounds awkward, too many (or not enough) syllables jumbling together, you need to rewrite. Maintain flow. it should sound as beautiful as the ideas you're trying to express.

here's a step by step nit pic.

>Spectral phantasms
bad way to start. pretentious and nonsensical. I have no idea what you're trying to convey, and it bores me from the start.
>across his periphery
peripheral vision? unclear. i get that you were probably trying to shorten this but it sounds weird, doesn't flow.
>from one side of the window's glass to the next
wait, I thought they were in his mind? but now they're on the window? confusing. also, next implies linearity, I would use "other" in its place.
>the scent is powerful
vague. how is it powerful?
>The amount of salt...is artery clogging
awkwardly worded, feels like it both goes on too long and ends too soon.
>diminutive crystals
silly way to describe it.
>he knows this is real because....
this comes out of no where. this is an affirmation that his perception of reality is accurate, but where in the preceding text was it ever even suggested that it wasn't? the phantasms? but that made so little sense that it left no impression upon me as a reader.

keep writing. write outside your comfort zone. keep reading. i get the feeling you read a lot of post modern or experimental lit, which isn't inherently bad, but before you start bending rules you should first become fluent in them. read Lolita. read moby dick. read works with great prose, and keep practicing. before you forge your own style, try imitating other writers. this will give you a sense of what it means to have voice.

tl;dr
you're creative and you have passion but you lack fluency. keep practicing, get some taste so that you can recognize your own inadequacies.

>> No.7141297

who here /idiot/?

me BTFO

>> No.7141575

I'm more concerned about your lack of understanding of coronary artery disease.

That break in realism totally ruined it for me.

Also can you really not see how it is circular?

>> No.7142004

>>7141575
>>7141575
No, I can't. Explain its circularity. And not many people are experts on coronary artery disease. It's only on the internet and thanks to an easy access to Google can spergs like you pretend to be health care professionals.

>> No.7142018

>>7132112
Lol no it hasn't.
piss off.

>> No.7142191

>>7132211
you use 'is' too much. you can't just SAY what's happening, there's more to writing than that. some of it is pleasant to read tbh

>> No.7142195

>>7142004
If I can simply Google it then you can too. If you're going to put shit in your novel you have to research it beforehand.

>> No.7142325

>>7142195
Do you understand how fiction works? The average human being is _not_ an expert on coronary artery disease. And you still haven't explained your "circular" comment.

>> No.7143542

>>7141288
I think it has plenty of rhythm.

>> No.7143943

>>7135678
>breaking every morale rule
lol good start

>> No.7143967

>>7132117
>>7132112
Serious answer: try amphetamines.

>> No.7144005

>>7139974
he made it better though

>> No.7144154

>>7144005
btfo memelord

>> No.7144216

>>7143967
Amphetamines only helped me to re organize my bookshelf 50 times before masturbating for 3 straight hours.

If I actually did manage to get something down I would become the worst kind of perfectionist spending the longest time drawing out the smallest most unimportant details and then delete everything only to rewrite it in a slightly different way.

It's like they give my anxiety the energy to worry about every little thing while still getting practically nothing constructive done

Idk bro

>> No.7144265

>>7133735
What's it called? I'm not calling bullshit here, I'm just interested.

>> No.7144474

>>7135727
You do understand how hypocritical this post is, don't you?

>> No.7145106

>>7133886
Did you just decide it wasn't worth the effort, or what?

>> No.7145544

>>7142325

That person above was not me.

Personally I really enjoy stories where the author acts as if his audience is so dumb he doesn't have to do any research. I just wish you had not got it slightly wrong by confusing hypertension and CAD. I wish you had gone balls to the wall and said she was putting so much salt in the soup that you'd require a tetanus shot from the rust that would develop on the side of the pot. Also rabies.

>> No.7145571

>>7145544

Because in case you didn't know, people think cuts by rusty objects cause tetanus. And rabies has extreme thirst as a symptom, as does excess salt.

II retract my criticism of your circularity. It was only because at that time I thought my judgement was valid because it was grounded logically in reality. What I didn't realise was that I had no way of knowing that my judgement was valid or not apart from my belief that it was grounded in reality. I was caught in my own solipsistic Crock-Pot and for that I apologize from the depths of my spectral soul.

>> No.7145661

>>7145571
Sure, if they're commonly-believed myths and I'm writing from the perspective of an average person and I feel it's relevant to the situation I'm writing about I'll go ahead and insert them in my story, no problem.

>> No.7145675
File: 103 KB, 1024x768, 1442770694050.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7145675

>>7145106
Decide what wasn't worth the effort? I just didn't take the culture shock of going from a rural Christian enclave to a liberal New England university well at all and got wrapped up in stuff that I supposed became valuable life experience but hurt my academic career because I was totally unmoored from the things I had built my life around. I've since gotten my shit together and I'm reasonably successful now, but I went through a few years of what I would consider laziness.

>> No.7145690

>>7145571
Also thanks for admitting you were wrong. It takes a lot of courage to admit you were absolutely 100% wrong. Most people don't have it in them to do that.

>> No.7146829

>>7144216
keking all day long

>> No.7147269

>>7132112
>everything I've written so far has been of masterpiece status.
prove it

>> No.7147278

>>7132211
for fucks sake man, take it easy on the wording. less is more.

>> No.7147281

>>7132112

Fuck this meme so much. The mind is like the body. It disintegrates when not in use. Smart but lazy is like fit but fat. It makes no god damned sense.

>> No.7147286

>>7132112
discipline is better than skill. Always. A great writer that never writes is shit compared to an okay writer that actually finishes his work and puts out a lot of shit. I'd go as far to say that being good at writing but never finishing your work and never showing that finished work to the world disqualifies you from 'Writer' status. you're just a skilled amateur

Listen to Shia. Do It. Discipline is more important than inspiration.

>> No.7147287

>>7147278

Please don't hold this belief uncritically. Minimalism is a modern meme. Most of the immortal authors were never minimalists.

>> No.7147293

>>7147287
>Most of the immortal authors were never minimalists.

almost none were, but I think it's fair to say that both all of the greatest and worst works of literature in history were excessive in some aspect; adequacy is a register of mediocrity. For example of great, excessive works, take anything by Shakespeare, Whitman, Melville, etc. For bad works, take Infinite Jest or Gravity's Rainbow

>> No.7147294

>>7132112
I managed to finish writing a play a while ago. It's not really good for now, i didn't find how to express all the things i wanted and i've been considering turning it into a novel, but i've been on this project for a decade, written some short stories in the middle, and now i don't even know if i wanna get back into that story again.

But at least, i have a version of it finished. I might just try to get it published finally but i'm not sure.

>> No.7147300

>>7147294
from what i hear, no author is 100% happy with the way their book finishes. you either hate it and edit it or think 'close enough' and publish it, the ntry to get closer next time.

get it published. why not? better than it sitting there for another decade being untouched. If it get published, i'll be a source of pride instead of a source of anxiety

>> No.7147314
File: 417 KB, 2500x2500, 1435948945450.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7147314

>>7132112
>everything I've written so far has been of masterpiece status.
>>7132211
>masterpiece status.

>> No.7147318

>>7147300
I'm not a writer but I'm a musician, and from my own experience and what I hear other people in any creative field say this is true. Whenever I am recording a song I just have to come to a point where I say fine, this is as good as it gets, but I'm never satisfied.

>> No.7147325

>>7147300
You're right. I'll try to get that done.

>> No.7147335
File: 354 KB, 544x733, 1442924621184.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7147335

>>7135988

>taking 115ug of acid tonight

>> No.7147342

I feel like were being trolled. That passage was complete, mastubatory bullshit.

>>7138254
this guy got it. its not great, but its leagues better than your own shit. If you want to fill your writing with all those bullshit words and fluff, do it in a way that doesnt take 3 fucking paragraphs to get anywhere. This stuff is fun to write and horrible to read. Keep it in your diary

>> No.7148473

>>7147342
What makes it "masturbatory"? lmao

>> No.7148818

>>7147287
Exactly. This whole "minimalism" trend perpetuated by Hemingway and replicated by truck-drivin' leather-wearin' whiskey-drinkers is nothing more than a fad.

>> No.7149864

>>7148818
Minimalism is a good place to start for upcoming authors so they don't write the way OP does. More than that, minimalism assists in accessibility (and potential sales of a book)

>> No.7149871

>>7132211
I'm not a fan but it's not as terrible as I expected it to be. My main issue is that you sound like you're trying too hard to be DFW.

>> No.7150015

funniest thread on /lit/ in a while

>> No.7150020

>story has an academic writing style and/or mentions office life

HURR DFW

>> No.7151745

bump

>> No.7152274

>>7132211
kill yourself my man

>> No.7152355

>>7150020

>or mentions office life

Get real. It's 2015 and it's everywhere.

>> No.7152601

>>7133971

>Someone with direction would never have learned how to post here.

As if it's some titanic undertaking to work out.

Someone with direction could also have been searching for lit communities online to get a feel of the current zeitgeist.

Do you really think that people with direction would never once want to discuss literature with other readers? They did it all the time in cafes and salons in years past. Spent huge amounts of time lounging around shooting the shit with like-minded people.