/lit/ - Literature

write with a smaller audience in mind. instead of thinking about writing something that will get "recognized," try writing something that you think a friend of yours would like.

>>15381360
If there’s o ideas floating around in your head, you probably aren’t going to make it big. Maybe someday something will come to you. Ever consider journalism, just as a way to practice writing?
Pursue it for the art, the joy of it. Don’t pressure yourself. Read widely for just as much pleasure.

>>15381360
I find it easier to create things when I'm buzzed.

>>15381360
Read Palahniuk's new book on writing, especially the chapter on why to write. In short, there's little point in writing to publish these days (and almost impossible to make a living from writing even if you do publish) but there is a great deal of benefit in writing-as-therapy. It's also far more enjoyable.

>>15381360
Stop telling yourself you have to write to fulfill some dream, and try writing for the sake of writing. Maybe you're starting too big. Forget about novels and other larger projects for now, and just write short self-enclosed pieces like reflections and journal articles. How do you think you're going to get anywhere with this if you don't even have anything to say? Maybe go on a long walk and start looking for details that you may have missed before. Try to think of interesting ways to describe the things you see, perhaps relating them back to whatever thoughts or works you've been preoccupied with lately. Consider bringing a small notebook with you to record these little jottings. It may seem self-absorbed at first, but you'll build up a little repertoire of ideas that you can revisit whenever you need a creative nudge.

>>15381431
>journal articles
I meant "journal entries," not articles for an academic journal or anything like that.

I’ve heard about writing for its own sake and the joy of it, but I don’t feel any joy when I write (well, very rarely)...

>>15381360
>>15381701
It's okay to change your mind about wanting to write. Taking an interest in something isn't a life sentence.

>>15381360
>So I’ve read books on how to write.
What books? I would recommend reading Writing into the Dark by Dean Wesley Smith. He's an uber boomer and a pulpy commercial writer, but it doesn't matter. Any struggling writer, literary or otherwise can benefit from that book.

>of that minority that gets published, an even smaller minority gets “recognized.”
Who gives a shit? Is your desire to write or to be a writer? Unironic question that's important to come to terms with.

Here's something you can do. Take a book you like or a short story, and literally type passages from it word for word. I'm not memeing. If you do this, even for like 15 minutes a day with an alert mind you will learn a great deal.

>Yet when I sit down to actually write... nothing happens.
You're probably paralyzing yourself by setting expectations that you must write something good. Sit down every day and write for one hour following this exercise:
>A character in a setting with a problem
That's all it needs to be. It could be your high school wrestling coach at the beach and he can't tell if he has to shit or fart. It could be your mom in the bedroom and my dick's too big for her. Like just pick any character in any setting with even just the vague sense of a problem. None of the three aspects needs to be compelling because you are practicing. Do this for a month. Maybe it won't do shit for you, but worst case scenario you set yourself back a month, which doesn't matter since you're just spinning your wheels as it is anyway.

>>15381701
>but I don’t feel any joy when I write
Writing is sitting in front of a computer or a notepad or whatever and making stuff up. It's super fun.

>>15381964
>Here's something you can do. Take a book you like or a short story, and literally type passages from it word for word. I'm not memeing. If you do this, even for like 15 minutes a day with an alert mind you will learn a great deal.
Does this actually work? What progress would I see if I did that but for 1 hour everyday for 1 month

>>15381360
>A published 4channer gave this advice a while back
He started writing about what he wanted to read, they said covers what others want to read about (because most likely there are others like yourself), passion and meaning. Also take commissions from other people, a concept, an event etc. And use that as a way to avoid ruminating on what to write and actually write.
Personally I would try some freeform journaling with as much lying as intuitively felt and pin point your own fantasies, you can rework these into compelling story points as you develop the scenarios into idealistic ones and connect them to larger overall structures of meaning etc.

>>15381360
You wrote this post didn't you?
>>15381701
then why do it?
>>15381964
>Take a book you like or a short story, and literally type passages from it word for word. I'm not memeing. If you do this, even for like 15 minutes a day with an alert mind you will learn a great deal.
Unironically good advice.
>Like just pick any character in any setting with even just the vague sense of a problem.
I'd like to tack on to this, great writing can make even insignificant shit seem like the most important thing in the world if they understand their character.
People really do have moments of total focus on insignificant things, like trying to get the paper ball into the waste basket in one throw, or stalking their old schoolmates on Facebook. Write it with full understanding of the character's perspective, communicate their mad obsession and motivations, and there you have a compelling story.

>>15381360
You’re being a retard.

Just write garbage and get your draft on paper, then force yourself to rewrite and rewrite and add detail and refine sentences.

Joyce would work the whole day on just two sentences when he was writing Ulysses

>>15381964
>>15383431
>>15384183

>Here's something you can do. Take a book you like or a short story, and literally type passages from it word for word. I'm not memeing. If you do this, even for like 15 minutes a day with an alert mind you will learn a great deal.

Gene Wolfe had a good idea on this.

>Every so often I get optimistic and explain the best method of learning
to write to students. I don’t believe any of them has ever tried it, but I
will explain it to you now. After all, you may be the exception. When I
read about this method, it was attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who
invented and discovered so much. Certainly I did not invent it.
But I did it, and it worked. That is more than can be said for most
creative writing classes.

>Find a very short story by a writer you admire. Read it over and over
until you understand everything in it. Then read it over a lot more.
Here’s the key part. You must do this. Put it away where you cannot
get at it. You will have to find a way to do it that works for you. Mail
the story to a friend and ask him to keep it for you, or whatever. I left
the story I had studied in my desk on Friday. Having no weekend
access to the building in which I worked, I could not get to it until
Monday morning.

>When you cannot see it again, write it yourself. You know who the
characters are. You know what happens. You write it. Make it as good
as you can.

>Compare your story to the original, when you have access to the
original again. Is your version longer? Shorter? Why? Read both
versions out loud. There will be places where you had trouble. Now
you can see how the author handled those problems.
If you want to learn to write fiction, and are among those rare people
willing to work at it, you might want to use the little story you have
just finished as one of your models. It’s about the right length.

>>15384268
Fucking based

>>15381360
Are there any books that OP's pic describes?
Closest I can think of is I read a lot of jewish/christian essentially folk literature, where the only surviving copies were translated so many times and had so many additions and bizarre changes.

>>15384475
Robert Burton’s Arabian Nights, except instead of repairing it with gold he inserts tons of Big Black Cocks

>>15384557
>I found the secret to life, and it is this: there is no problem big enough, that a huge black cock can not fix.

>>15381360
Do you not have ideas to write about or is it a skill that you lack to express those ideas?
Or both?

>>15384268
A warning about this though, this is incredibly difficult to do.

He also omitted a part from Franklin's original conception (which btw was not his original conception, copywork has been around since antiquity) where you're supposed to write down a summary of the story after you read it: main plot points, themes, character names and other proper nouns. This decreases the difficulty (only slightly) while still preserving its benefit.

When one goes to Obaku temple in Kyoto he sees carved over the gate the words "The First Principle". The letters are unusually large, and those who appreciate calligraphy always admire them as being a masterpiece. They were drawn by Kosen two hundred years ago.

When the master drew them he did so on paper, from which the workmen made the large carving in wood. As Kosen sketched the letters a bold pupil was with him who had made several gallons of ink for the calligraphy and who never failed to criticize his master's work.

"That is not good," he told Kosen after his first effort.

"How is this one?"

"Poor. Worse than before," pronounced the pupil.

Kosen patiently wrote one sheet after another until eighty-four First Principles had accumulated, still without the approval of the pupil.

Then when the young man stepped outside for a few moments, Kosen thought: "Now this is my chance to escape his keen eye," and he wrote hurriedly, with a mind free from distraction: "The First Principle."

"A masterpiece," pronounced the pupil.

>>15384076
>He started writing about what he wanted to read, they said covers what others want to read about (because most likely there are others like yourself)
This seems like the basis for being a good artist. First you have good, discerning taste regarding the art you like. Then you decide you want to create the kind of art you enjoy, and you hold yourself to the standard of your favorite art.

>>15381404
>In short, there's little point in writing to publish these days (and almost impossible to make a living from writing even if you do publish)
This sounds like defeatist junk. Aside from any statistics on people making a living from writing being likely skewed from including self-published authors, you have to also remember that the majority of what gets published is complete trash. People putting out garbage might not be making a living, but if you're putting out good work then you're already a high tier writer even if you haven't been published or finished a publishable work yet.

Also, the bar for "making a living" is extremely low when it comes to writing. You can do it literally anywhere you want. You don't need to live somewhere expensive, you don't need fancy equipment, you don't even need to be living in the first world. You could be making $10k a year from writing and e-mail your publisher from your home in India and live very well.

>>15381360
A writer doesn’t sit down to write. There is already something in his head that he wants to get out. What’s in your head? What do you think matters? What is the purpose of writing? Start asking yourself questions like these and perhaps begin by writing answers to these, and with a journal. Writing should be natural. Start writing what you feel, what you experience, what you think of X and Y and Z and what you consider is ideal or the opposite of that.

>>15385584
You do realize that even pro, published authors have day jobs to make a living? Not even talking about self-published authors here, less than 1% of trad published authors are able to live off the sales of their books. The rest work as professors, teachers, journalists etc. And the books that make the most money (including self-publishing) are usually the ones that are trash (erotica, pulp thrillers, light-novel tier genre fiction etc.). The covariance between quality literature and income is negative.

>>15385584
>You could be making $10k a year from writing and e-mail your publisher from your home in India and live very well.
Have there been any recent notable ESL authors who have made it?

>>15385646
I mean, if you choose to write stuff that you know doesn't sell then you're not really making a real effort to live from writing, are you? I would imagine that within the category of people writing regularly and well in a genre that sells (ie not putting out books of poetry or spending ten years trying to write finnegan's wake part 2), the percentage of people making a living is significantly higher, especially when you consider that these types of statistics tend to assume that you need to be making $40k a year to be "making a living". I'll be quitting my job and living with a roommate in an apartment if I have to and writing full time as soon as I'm making half that much.

>>15385686
I don't mean ESL authors, I mean if you're getting regularly published but not making enough money to live on in a first world country and you want to live off your writing, move to a cheaper country and write from there.

>>15385838
I don't know man, do what you feel is right for you, but personally I've been disillusioned by the allure of "making it". Literature nowadays isn't worth living like a third-worlder. People barely read anymore and piracy destroys the rest of the profits.

I write only for myself now, and only stories which explore my own personal deep-seated issues or experiment with form and craft. I find that a lot more satisfying than trying to write what sells or what might win awards (a paltry consolation these days).

Good luck to you though, hopefully your optimism carries you through the inevitable.

>>15384587
Posts you can hear

>>15381360
Holy fuck kid stop being a pussy and write. Treat it like a job you dumb fuck. Put words on the page and edit that shit later just FUCKING WRITE. With a clear goal. A template for the braindead hopeless: chapters 1-3k; outline the first 5 chapters with 1-3 sentences; proceed.