/lit/ - Literature

That sounds totally uninteresting. You're assuming your experiences automatically give you a voice with something altogether new and original to say on the subject. As if wisdom is inherent with having gone through a particular thing, and not through close introspection.

No offense OP, but people like you bother me. You're not a writer if you don't write.

Not like it's an exclusive club, but it's sad how many people have your mindset.

>>2029432

Huh?

Why do you assume there is no introspection involved? And no one ever wrote something great without experiencing something great.

>>2029436
Exactly. People who expect some faint praise for having drummed up some ideological aspiration without anything to show for it. Regardless of how good the intentions, in the end your output is all you've have to stand on.

To be fair to OP, he doesn't say he's *not* writing anything at the moment, he just says he wants to write "something that will encapsulate our generation and its uniqueness." That's a rather tall order but oh well. I mean, I can't say I haven't thought something similar (phrased differently, of course), but I've always put it off for another day. I write other things, but I haven't yet attempted the novel I want to do eventually. There are fragments of the thoughts I want to put into that novel, but the totality of the thing has yet to coalesce into a form I would enjoy writing.

>>2029448
*you'll

>>2029436

Well, what would make someone a writer? I sit down and write for hours. Then it might not be for another week that I get back at it. It's sporadic. That's what I mean by "rarely" I just don't do it every day. Well, working on the novel/stories everyday. I write everyday though.

I should work on it everyday shouldn't I?

I think you're probably where I am in a way. Other writers piss you off so you don't talk about it or are reluctant?

>>2029449

Exactly. I know it's a tall order and I'm not saying I'm some kind of messiah who's about to come save the literal world or something. It's more like this... I read all these older authors like Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Buckowski, Thompson, etc... And then I look at us and I don't see anyone doing what they did for their generation/time. You know? Maybe I don't know enough modern authors?

I don't see anyone standing up and saying anything. Ironically, I see us writing enough words over the internet to make a novel. I see us bitching at each other. I see us with this sense of entitlement to some dream we can't even describe. I see our relationships being nothing more then 1's and 0's. I see our politics grumbling and we don't do a damn thing about it.

>>2029464
So really all you have are hasty assumptions?

Tao Lin already encapsulated this generation in his poem about the whale.

>>2029464
>I'm not saying I'm some kind of messiah who's about to come save the literal world or something.
Nah, I didn't think you said you were. As a matter of the fact, I said I had the same idea myself: to write some sort of generational novel, but I never have. My point was that it's difficult to do so and that you could be writing other things in the mean time. That is, you just have aspirations to write the novel you want to write at the moment, but that doesn't mean that you aren't writing anything at all. I see I'm wrong since you pointed out in a post after mine that you are in fact writing that novel, but I think my overall point still stands.

As for writing the novel itself, I think writing a generational novel is a sort of dead-end. So long as you're thinking in terms of "I'm writing the novel of my generation/I'm the writer of my generation" you're bound to get a huge ego, especially if you start trying to promote yourself endlessly like certain authors who can't help but become unpleasant jackasses as they endlessly parrot their novels to people who want none of it. Forcing the idea of your novel into the strictures of such high expectations, you may never get anything done because you feel it won't encapsulate everything, and you'll be absolutely correct since a novel *cannot* encapsulate every human born in the last twenty or so years. Look at something smaller and expand if necessary.

>>2029470
Go to bed Tao.

I'm writing sci-fi / fantasy, wouldn't call it generic. Feels good man. So, you want to write something that "encapsules our generation and its uniqueness". Can you elaborate? Honestly what new ground is there to break anymore? Another boring social commentary, just updated for this generation?

u wanna 'encapsule our generation and it's uniqueness'?

Write vampire romance.

I'm pretty sure there already are fine novels like that. Or have you read everything published within the last 10 years or so, OP?

BTW, *every* writer thinks they are above the rest, when in reality they are swimming in the same sea of piss.

The short story I'm currently working on starts off as the typical 'encapsulating the apathy of today's youth' wankery, but moves on to something better (or I feel it does anyway):

>Young man takes lots of drugs, goes out every night, searching for meaning in hedonism
>Disillusionment with this etc. as nothing is found
>Sees how unhappy those with the antithetical working life are, feels trapped and lost
-
>Opts to graze with a rogue group of Bison until he either starves to death or is killed by one

>>2029464

You are the very essence of what is wrong with today's world. A pussy. You see and feel the world's problems and the best idea you can come up with is to write some pretentious novel....

Another grumbling hipster. still holding a grudge because you weren't the popular kid in the third grade.

Actions runs this world. Everything else equals zero.

Fuck off bitch.

Well, I recently started working on my first real attempt at a short story (that is, something that isn't purely a joke). I don't have intentions of being a "writer" but I do want to learn how to write well and tell a satisfying tale, just for the hell of it, and to feed my obsession with learning how things operate. To me this is very special. It's something I never imagined I would actually do, and yet I find that I'm having a great time doing it.

The only audience I really have in mind is myself and /lit/. i don't care to make a big splash in the world.

>>2029436
there is no such thing as "writer". you cannot "be a writer". there are only "people who write". this requires them to actually write. i agree with you.

Having the themes and ideas of encapsulating the youth of today is all well and good, but what is your story with which to tell these themes? Express them through plot and action and character development, not through another young guy sitting around and introspecting. Story is important, but one story can have a hard time expressing the entirety of a fleeting generation. Don't try to cram too much in one story. A character's words and actions, a plot twist, etc. do a better job of revealing themes, and all must be compelling and interesting. Nothing is worse than a young-man type narrator who sits around and does drugs and introspects all day.

I'm writing a fantasy. Dunno if it's generic. I felt kind of cheated when I first read Anansi Boys, but in the end it's a different tale, different mythology, and I'd rather work like the demiurge. I plan to explore a lot of different themes, but it's all part of the plot - the history of humanity's psychological and social need for the supernatural, as well as the reverse in this fantasy setup where the supernatural is reality. I've researched many different beliefs and religious systems over my years - the goal is to find the common themes and unite them, as well as get to the core of human belief. But as I work on it I find I can't just cram themes and faith systems in there either - Voudou, for instance, synced quite well with the metaphysical side of it, but Wicca rang discordant. But when I focus on the plotlines - the string of SHCs found in the main character's city, the drug ring run by a god of pleasure and discord, etc. and the characters down to their individual quirks do a better job expressing the important themes and ideas and the voice of the time and the city it is set in than anything else.

>>2029574

Thank you for clarifying. Honestly.

My attitude is kind of that I will start telling people I want to write on the day I cash a check for something I wrote.

Compiling short stories for a collection that I plan to self publish and put online for free or for 2 bucks. Hope to have it up by the end of the year.

How stories would you want in a collection by nobody famous for 2 bucks?

>>2029427
I just give everyone I know things I have read with a note asking them to edit for me.

>>2029634
*note read for written

>>2029628
Hey, that's a nice idea. I'd read it. I've been having problems with my own story - it just doesn't work as a single novel. A series of web-published novellas as in your idea or a webcomic would be much better...

I'm not even trying to sell or publish my shit, I've got a career in a whole different field. I just got a story to tell as well. Kind of a relaxing way to write.

>>2029427
>Hey /sp/... are you thinking of being an Olympic athlete? I am, sorf ot. I've been interested in excercise my whole life, but I rarely do. I have all this body, but I don't know how to get it to run really fast.

>>2029427
>it's uniqueness
Learn your apostrophes first.

>someone comes on /lit/
>posts something clearly /lit/ related as per the sticky
>gets trolled by all 5 other people browsing at the time

This is why /lit/ is the worst board on 4chan.

>>2029803
>after /mu/

>>2029777
This was a good post and you all should read it.

Most of the anons are pretty much on the ball in this thread, not much to be said really.

>I've never talked much about it before because I know a ton of people who are writing books and their all pretty much generic sci-fi/fantasy. They go on and on about how they are a writer, but I don't feel respect for them because they are pretty much writing what they read
Maybe you should stop associating with literary bottomfeeders, because of course they don't warrant any respect. How about if they read Dostoevsky and Joyce? Would it not be admirable to be able to write like them?

>Not breaking new ground
As far as I am concerned, so-called "innovation" (which has essentially led us down the banal route of metafiction in the novel) has prematurely and excessively outpaced the output of excellent works in novels. We do not need to break ground as much as we do need to start producing more and more capable writers that are closer and closer to the level of mastery of writers such as Dostoevsky and Joyce.

>I want to write something that's different. Something that will encapsule our generation and it's uniqueness.
This wasn't the quality of either Dostoevsky's or Joyce's, or any other great writer's work; it was the product of the quality of their writing.

OP, I think the first thing to do would be to read a tonne of serious literature. You know what that is, of course. As you do, begin writing. See how the two activities, reading and writing, help each other along.

It's not quite the case that new subject-matter alone will help you, but it does help. There's not yet been a real book about ketamine or crystal meth, you could try that. Read Joyce, as Deep&Edgy says, but ignore Dostoyevsky, apart from Notes from Underground he's neither useful nor particularly interesting, unless you want the perspective of a right-wing monarchist religious fanatic.

>>2029856
>unless you want the perspective of a right-wing monarchist religious fanatic.
or unless you love ad hominem arguments and you don't ever want to know how to craft a superb polyphonic novel and master such tools as double-voiced discourse

>>2029861
>unless you love
*don't love

>you don't ever
*you ever


fffucking hell

>>2029861

It's not ad hominem. That's what he was, and any of the craft stuff he did can be found done better elsewhere.

>>2029847
>because they are pretty much writing what they read
EVERYONE writes what they read. That's the rule of art. If you've only read one book, you can only just repeat it. If you've read a thousand, and if you're even borderline intelligent, you'll be what's normally considered original and fresh.

>>2029870
>That's what he was
And that's not what his writing is judged on, which is not to say it's not what influenced his writing. It doesn't really matter what perspective is at stake (as far as literary critical evaluation is concerned anyway; that's certainly a matter for debate in the arenas of ideological, psychological and historical discourse), it's the manner it's conveyed (written) which is important.

>any of the craft stuff he did can be found done better elsewhere.
Where has the polyphonic novel, and the use of double-voiced discourse been done better

>>2029856
>but ignore Dostoyevsky, apart from Notes from Underground he's neither useful nor particularly interesting
For fuck's sake, you can love his subject matter or not, but he's probably the best novelist there ever was. Have you read, I dunno, ANYTHING -- have you read the Gambler? It's a simple, short, rushed novel and it's a masterpiece of simplified, yet immensely effective storytelling. It's really rare to see anyhting like that.

Or what about the Idiot? It can be slow, but it can be so monstrously intense, that I can't even find a proper comparison. Dostoyevski was artistically intense. You can think all day about how deeeeep he is, but the true strength of his work is that his writing is a constant assault of holy fuck holy fuck HOLY FUCK H O L Y FUUUUUUUUUUUCK

>>2029875

Save this bullshit for the tourists - it runs through his writing, and if he hadn't seemed to echo the right 'eternal verities', nobody in the Victorian era would have given a fuck about his craft.

But this isn't the Victorian era.

'Polyphonic novel' is a term invented to describe his work after it was written, it wasn't what he was doing. Everyone who's copied this notion since about 1930 has tended to produce reactionary bilge.

The point is that if you want to go into the car business, you don't learn carpentry. You learn about metals, about physics, about chemistry. You want to make cars, not horse-drawn coaches. To try to write like Dostoyevsky now would be pointless. If I'm cretin enough to be interested in plot, I can get all the plot I want from TV. The novel now is not for iron-whiskered Tories - to be tenable it must be for a different sort of attention.

>>2029882

No he's not. OP wants to be a writer. Did you notice that? Not a reader. Not someone who sits, prone in awe. A writer. It is not of USE to a writer, at this stage in the game, to model the strategies of someone who died about 130 years ago.

I'm a simple man. All I know is that Doestoevsky's writing conveys the claustrophobic fever of Raskolnikov's mind/room with an intensity and immediacy that I don't normally find. And of course the pacing.

>>2029893
>OP wants to be a writer. Did you notice that? Not a reader.
D:
You best be trolling. I mean it.

>>2029892
>'Polyphonic novel' is a term invented to describe his work after it was written, it wasn't what he was doing.
Yes, like the more simpler yet uninformative terms "good", and "bad", all of which are concepts that describe the text, as interpreted; with an end towards furnishing a useful (and in this case, vindicating) summation of the work. They were terms and concepts that lauded mastery and aided understanding; not rules by which to write a fucking novel.

More to the point, someone who died before Modernism. Nobody reads shit like that anymore, except people who've decided to pursue literature from soup to nuts, and their numbers are too few to build a career on. People don't seek to be 'convinced' by a character, they seek provocative entertainment, and art that uses radical and unexpected forms to change their sense of what language can do, to enlarge its scope.

>>2029895
Is he that good? I tried to read Crime and Punishment, but I couldn't get past the first few chapters.

>>2029901
If thriller writers wrote like Dostoevsky, I would read them.

>>2029901
On the contrary. What you really, really, REALLY shouldn't base your writing career today is modernism. Dostoyevski is still here. Modernism is passe.

>>2029901
>People don't seek to be 'convinced' by a character, they seek provocative entertainment, and art that uses radical and unexpected forms to change their sense of what language can do, to enlarge its scope.
As though Doestoevsky didn't and wasn't capable of showing the way that language can convey so many differing ideologies. Do you peoiple actually read?

>>2029895

It's not good enough to be a simple man. If there's any lie that Dostoyevsky tells that corrodes the mind more, I haven't heard it. Contrary to what he'd have you believe, it is not good enough to be a simple man.


>>2029900

This shit doesn't work on me, son - in 2011, nobody except encyclopedia salesmen talks about 'lauding mastery'. I want to help OP not waste his time - reading Dostoyevsky is wasting time for his purposes.

>>2029904
It's hard to put down once the momentum gets going, and it gets going early.

>>2029906

No, it isn't. It's the beginning of what we now recognize as the serious novel.


>>2029907

No, he didn't. They say stuff, his characters. They say stuff they think. He doesn't convey differences of ideology through language, he didn't have even the faintest understanding of that, it's all just windy, paceless dramaturgy of people who he never convinces me deserve to live, let alone arrest my interest.

>>2029905

Then you're simultaneously two kinds of idiot, congratulations.

>>2029908
>This shit doesn't work on me, son - in 2011
Well maybe because that's you don't know anything about critical evaluation, in which case none of this is going to get through to your shallow pate.

>nobody except encyclopedia salesmen talks about 'lauding mastery'
And people at the top of their academic fields. The timeless province then, of swindlers and experts. Not an arena for clueless fucks and the average consumer.

>>2029915
>what we now recognize as the serious novel
Yes, yes, and that definitely is not something to strive for. It'd be like making love to a corpse, and even if you enjoy it, you're not going to entertain many people, and certainly not the intelligent ones.

>>2029918

The problem here is that I know people at the 'top of their academic fields', and they don't use language like that. You're not my leader, son, you just pass for a reader among these wretches. Know your place and stop wasting your time.

>>2029920

I'm helping OP, what are you doing?

>>2029915
>They say stuff, his characters. They say stuff they think.
And of course, people are fucking ideological tabula rasas

>He doesn't convey differences of ideology through language
Except any reader with the slightest bit of a critical background can see the centrifugal and centripetal social forces at work in his society exemplified through his characterisation. Protip: a writer does not write from a blank slate.

The rest of your stupid shit (derp he didn't understand what he was doing so it wasn't good, as though we can't laud someone for being able to do something we judge to be well without understand what he is doing; the gap between theoretical understanding and practical understanding) is the typical anti-theory bullshit that betrays your total ignorance. I've got better things to do than duke it out with a brainless idiot so you can go fuck yourself right about now good buddy.

>>2029917
And who are these large numbers of people who are reading to experience a new use of language?

>>2029928

>Protip: a writer does not write from a blank slate.

Can you expand on that just a little for me, please?

>>2029908
I consider your train of thought convoluted and misguided.

What a writer (not OP - he's not a writer because he doesn't write) needs to do perform is this:
1) write something that's fun to read;
2) said something should also be fun to have read.

Literary style is inconsequential. Trying to tie yourself to any particular one is stupid. The law of art is, if it's got an academically recognized name, it's already over. No good new work of art is an example of a previous era. Everything belongs to a style only in hindsight, not when it's being written.

If you believe in some sort of evolution of art, don't. "Acheivements" are merely fads. There were outstanding literary works a thousand years ago, a hundred years ago, a dozen years ago, there are today and there will be tomorrow. There is no linear progression, though. Art can wildly vary in quality, but it only differs in quality between authors and not ages. There are a few good songs and a boatload of bad ones today, there were in the fifties, there were romances and lieder and chanson - a few good ones a boatload of bad ones. There always was art, droll and pulp. Art and pulp look into tomorrow, droll looks into the past, belongs to an established art style and is the least effective or worthwhile.

>>2029928

> And of course, people are fucking ideological tabula rasas

This is a meaningless sentence. What did you think you were being sarcastic about?

> Except any reader with the slightest bit of a critical background can see the centrifugal and centripetal social forces at work in his society exemplified through his characterisation.

HAHAHA, you're sixteen! This is ridiculous. Do you really never expect to meet someone you can't bullshit? I've stated what his novels do. I do not care about the social forces at work in his society, I do not subscribe on any level to what he thought the world was about and if you think he succeeds in representing opinions opposed to his own, I can recommend an author called William F. Buckley Jr. Dostoyevsky is an antique, and antiques can be beautiful, but all you learn from them is what antiques are like. If you want to be a novelist, he's no use.

>>2029928

>Protip: a writer does not write from a blank slate.

Can you expand on that for me, please?

>>2029940
You write what you've read before. That's it. That's how it works. You paint what youv'e seen. You compose what you've heard, and write what you've read. Not doing it would be to randomize the process. There's no way aorund it: the author works with a patchwork of experiences.

Now, you can go boating or wage a war and then write about it, but that's ineffective, becasue even if you have something to say, you'll still have to learn to say it in written form, and the only way to do this is reading. See? Only reading is truly necessary to write.

>>2029937

This crap has no relation to the post it was apparently in reply to.

OP wants to be a serious writer, not one of those genre pedophiles, so people here are giving him tips. My tip: don't waste time on Dostoyevsky.

Wittgenstein had never read Plato when he started his work. He read Russell and a handful of others. His reasoning was that each stage of philosophy must solve the previous stages, so why recapitulate each previous stage before beginning? Start with the latest and work from that. That logic isn't neccesarily going to help anyone who's not a Wittgenstein, within the field of philosophy, but within literature, it's basically sound. If you want to know how to write a serious novel, OP, begin with Joyce and work forward.

>>2029939
>If you want to be a novelist, he's no use.
Wait, you think you learn ideas from other people's literary work? As a writer, you learn the technique. You may or may not love his subject matter, you may or may not agree with him or his characters - this completely, perfectly inconsequential. The only thing that matters to the writer is that his novels are very, very well written, and you can learn to write by reading them.

From Dostoyevski, you don't have to learn whether Orthodox Church was important in the XIX Russia. You ahve to learn how to construct a character, write a scene, pile up tension and plot. I have no clue how you missed all that.

(I'm not the person you were talking to, though.)

>>2029949

PS: OBVIOUSLY I'm not suggesting you eschew everything pre-Joyce, but don't take style tips from anything earlier. Some earlier writers still function as entertainment.

>>2029949
Literature - and art in general - has nothing to do with philosophy. Philosophy is an early precursor to science. Art is entertainment. You will not amount to anything until you truly understand that.

>>2029949
>This crap has no relation to the post it was apparently in reply to.
Yes. The point was, that post was so all over the place, I just had to start anew.

>>2029940
>>2029936
I think anon meant something like 'every novel is a sequel'

>>2029944

Thanks, that's what I thought he was saying, but I just wanted to make sure. It makes a lot of sense.

Godd show guys! I have really fucking enjoyed reading this thread. Please keep it up!

>>2029950

No. The point is, technique delineates consciousness. And consciousness changes. We don't think like Dostoyevsky's people do, so a technique based on those shapes of thought is not appropriate for a writer starting now. Dostoyevsky's style is for those who believe in God strongly enough to think they can identify with him. We don't hover over strangers' heads, deciding who's right. He has nothing to teach us about how we think, and no techniques to purloin that would interest any but a tiny minority of pastiche-trufflers.

>>2029953

>>>/sci/

>>2029955

Wrong.

>>2029964
>technique delineates consciousness
>consciousness changes
You mean to say, humans have changed too much to appreciate earlier art?
Because looks like you do -- and are freaking goddamn wrong. People are the same, obivously, and art is the same.

Listen, OP:

I will try to give you some sound advice about becoming a writer. The first is to not give a damn what anyone says to you; just write without a care about if ''they'' will think it good or not.

Consider this: Does anyone ever tell the painter to paint because they might like the finished piece?

The next thing to do is to not take the pip from anyone.Ignore the critics and yawn at any hint of dislike towards your finished piece. The point is to get your story out and have your words read. But, don't fancy yourself a good writer in this respect. You are just a writer, but that doesn't make you a good one, much like a peacock being a bird, but also a horrible singer.

It was Oscar Wilde who said ''There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well-written or badly written. That is all.''

Go forth and write.

>>2029968
How do you mean? That was my point, I'm pretty fucking sure it was.

>>2029971
>Ignore the critics
That may be the worst advice I've ever heard.

Technical criticism from professionals is invaluable, and general criticism ("this character sucks", "chapter 6 bored me to death", "the beginning is so boring") from the readers is equally vital.

Two things to note are"
1. Not everyone who says they're pro is actually a good and professional editor. If you don't respect them yourself, consider them a member of the general readership.
2. Ignore technical criticism from the readers. Ask for a general opinion, which they're perfectly capable of providing, and ignore the fake technicalities and technical advice. And never take technical advice from your peers, too.

The editor, if they're good, can provide great advice in detail. General reader more often than not knows the WHAT, but rarely if ever has any idea about the WHY. Obviously.

>>2029969
I'm not saying they can't appreciate it, I'm saying there's no sense in recapitulating it, in copying it, and if what you're interested in doing is writing, then it's probably best not to look to Dostoyevsky as a model. People are NOT the same, obviously. Art CANNOT be the same.


>>2029972
You were incorrect. There was no confusion or muddle. You attached your rant inappropriately by mistake.

>>2029993

No, that is incorrect.You and I are seeing things differently. You are seeing it as a voice of good business. I am seeing it as a form of art. Many of the best writers have never cared about the opinions of critics.

Some of them include: Oscar Wilde, Hunter S. Thompson, Herman Hesse, and Henry Miller.

However, you are agreeing with me on your second tip. For this, we agree.

>>2029999

Those four are only the tip of the iceberg, there must be thousands of writers who never paid any attention to critics.

OH WAIT

>>2029999

Quads to make it true?

>>2029997
>People are NOT the same, obviously. Art CANNOT be the same.
Gee, open your eyes. We're only a few generations apart form Dostoyevski. Currently, everything is word-by-word, thought-by-though the same as in the XX century, or XIX, or whenever. Now I see you haven't read much of the earlier literature. Else you would have seen how similar it is to anything written int eh twentieth century or today.

And if you think anyone intelligent in the XIX century would have been shocked or amazed by anything in the art of the XX century, you're perfectly wrong. Everything has been done before, by the very similar sorts of artists.

>>2029999
>You are seeing it as a voice of good business. I am seeing it as a form of art.
Gee. A true artist is still a businessman. The difference between an artist and a peddler is, an artist sells art, while whoever else sells whatever else he's got to offer.

If you aren't a businessman, if you're not expecting an audience and don't want to please it, you are not an artist. It's the main reason why teenagers (like you; aren't you 17 or somehting?) are rarely artists.

>>2030013


So, you are saying that there was someone just like P.G. Wodehouse that he copied? And the same for Henry Miller? How about Anthony Burgess?

Hmmm....

>>2030022
Who copied? Dostoyevski? There rarely are clear parallels between authors, because every person does too many choices in his life. Between works, though, - plenty, and audiences are absolutely the same in every year and age, the latter being a plain scientific fact.

>>2030020
Incorrect again. All of the greatest artist have done art for art's sake. Not for the pleasing of the masses. The idea of art is to give a creation life.

If your art is completed - then it is art. If the art work is favored only by a few - it is a blessing. If the work is loved by all - it makes one immortal.

You speak too much like an American for my taste.

By the bye, no one ever writes a memoir or biography in order for it to be liked.

>>2030029
>All of the greatest artist have done art for art's sake
Ha ha, how about Shakespeare? Haydn? Mozart? Beethoven? Michelangelo Buonarotti?

Look. You are ignorant. At this point, it is a fact. Many if not most great works of art were work for hire, commissions or other ways to earn a quick (or, occasionally, big) buck.

>>2030029
Also, lol at
>You speak too much like an American for my taste.
I am, in fact, Russian.

>>2030032

Hahahahaha! You are the ignorant one it seems.

Firstly:
Mozart composed music only for it's creation, he railed against critics. Need anyone tell you of his problems with Emperor Joseph II and his court?

Beethoven was considered a ''dangerous'' composer due to his strong and often passionate music.

Shakespeare was (if he really did write the pieces) a play-writer. His focus was not the art, but the drama.

Haydn was considered the originator of Beethoven's style (being one of his teachers) and encouraged Beethoven to keep producing, regardless of his social status or critics in general. He saw talent and understood it, as if Beethoven would have followed it anyway.

Real, serious advice for OP.

1: Work out which critics represent your ideal reader and aim towards them. If you're writing the literary novel, you're writing for critics and people who read critics, you cannot afford to be ignorant of fashion.

2: Write your golden legend - the colorful, fictional version of your life-story that you'll give out to editors, publishers, critics and journalists. It should come to about 3000 words if you're around 20 or younger. Memorize it. Replace your real history with it in your memory.

3: Drop or put on the back-burner anyone whose life you intend to use in your writing, so that it doesn't fuck anything up if they find out and object.

4: Make a list of six or seven really good gimmicks and deploy them at appropriate moments. A good person to look at is Tao Lin. He gets what the deal is. A title nobody can say without giggling, a title that incorporates a brand-name, a title that's another writer's name, making it impossible to search for that writer without also finding him. This is the kind of genius a writer needs in 2011.

5: Dress like an adult. If you start now you won't have to make the awkward transition when you're in your thirties and realize you're still wearing hooded sweatshirts. DO NOT BUY EXPENSIVE OR TAILORED CLOTHES THEY WILL ONLY MAKE PEOPLE HATE YOU.

6: Never use a manual typewriter, drink scotch, or wear a fedora. It's just far, far too late in the day. You probably won't make any of these hipster errors, being gay, but remember in case you're tempted - it is not 1948 and this is not El Monte.

>>2030013

This is Tory trash.

>>2030029
a book unread is a book unwritten. If you are writing purely for your own gratification, you are not making art, you are just wanking. Remember, the purpose of art is to express and communicate. You need an audience, even if it's only one person, in order to communicate.

>>2030044

Continued...


7: Never begin a sentence, when talking, with the phrase 'as a writer', or include this phrase in any discussion of your work. You ARE a writer, you have no other identity that concerns them.

8: If it frees you, use a pen-name, but make sure it's something you'd be happy to be called for the rest of your life. Do not use one word or a weird pattern of capitalization. Do not use an obvious joke.

9: Buy people drinks. If people think you're generous, they give you things. Always be the least drunk person in the room with career acquaintances. People who don't even drink open up around drunk people, thinking it's not going on the record, and you need to be aware enough to take advantage of that.

10: Make sure your declared personal pantheon includes two or three semi-forgotten writers. Their stock's rise will be tied to your own, and your work will sell to their cult.

11: Don't praise conservative writers unless you're rich. Most of the people you'll meet in your career at first will be poor writers or prosperous liberal people who want to help poor writers, and you must indulge them in their beliefs. Remember: the only free man is the King, the rest of us just take up positions.

12: Write 2000 words every day. You can take all day, but make 2000 and make it every day, even Sundays. Revision doesn't count, but you should also revise as you go along, revising the last session's output as you prepare for, and work on, the next. Computers make it much easier than it used to be to hop between these activities.

>>2030050
>>2030044
But most importently:

Be Yourself.

>>2030043
>Mozart composed music only for it's creation, he railed against critics.
Mozart wrote almost everything as a commission. And he did it, because his father made him to with a beating, not because he felt an ephemeral genius.

Beethoven was considered various things, but he was as populistic in his approach to art as humanly possible. He was many things, but never an academist or a purist.

Hayds. Look into his career and see if he was an art-for-art's-sake type of guy or what. Just read his fucking biography.

Shakespeare - wait, you said "if he wrote the plays". Discussion is over, son.

>>2030055

Please tell me you're joking. That's the most useless advice in the world. He's already himself.

>>2030044
>>2030050
Good advice. This is good advice. Finally someone other then the TRUE ART FOR ART'S SAKE!!!1 kinder in the thread.

>>2030061
There is no evidence that Mozart's father was particularly violent towards him, even though he was really overbearing. Maybe you're thinking of Beethoven's drunk father who Beethoven ended up hating

>>2030070
It is a fact that Mozarts father made his into a virtuoso by age 6. If you think a six year old kid can become a virtuoso on his own, or that it's healthy to do professional level of clavichort practice (2-4 hours daily) for a six year old, you're mistaken.

>>2030072
Mozart was just ar eally talented kid you know. Like Einstein. They still have them 2day.

Question, dear /lit/erati:

How does one find time to write?

Is ones estate so vast and fruitful to support the lifestyle of landed gentry?

I have a passion to write, would that time permit, my hand will not cease before my quill runs dry.

Yet my studies deliver no respite, verily I see no chance to indulge my desires even after; for ones occupation usually does occupy oneself.

Mayhap a kind fellow offer a word to one as wretched as I?

>>2030075
If you can't find time to write, that's it. Reasons are unimportant, sadly.

The advice would be, though, "do less of what you're doing now to free time for writing".

>>2030065

Thank you! I hope it will be of help.

>>2030074

Like Tao Lin, hes a genius!

>>2030075

That was nice to read. You should be a writer.

>>2030075
>How does one find time to write?

You have time to write; you choose not to write.

>Is ones estate so vast and fruitful to support the lifestyle of landed gentry?

Plenty of celebrated writers never had a vast estate as a basis or reward for their writing. You only need pen and paper to write.

>I have a passion to write, would that time permit, my hand will not cease before my quill runs dry.

You mean you have a fancy for being an esteemed writer.

>Yet my studies deliver no respite, verily I see no chance to indulge my desires even after; for ones occupation usually does occupy oneself.

If your studies really do encompass all of your time then you should at least have something you can write about later.

>Mayhap a kind fellow offer a word to one as wretched as I?

You probably aren't meant for writing. Also, your style here is a clumsy parody and doesn't impress as intended.

>>2030142
mayhaps he was being ironical, good sir.

>>2030152
That doesn't rescue it from pomposity.

>>2029427

>>2030164

best post in the thread

>>2030142

>double-facepalm

>>2029939
>This is a meaningless sentence. What did you think you were being sarcastic about?
your fucking blatant stupidity that renders what I'm saying meaningless for you

>I've stated what his novels do
Yes, what they do for an ignorant fucking retard like you. And not particularly fucking well at that.

>I do not care about the social forces at work in his society
And that's just another minute reason you can't possibly have a comprehensive appreciation of literature, along with the bigger more fundamental reason of being a gigantic vacuous tool.

>I do not subscribe on any level to what he thought the world was about
Cool, I don't give a shit what he though anything was about so long as wrote well, and he did. Which is what you're incapable of working out.

>f you think he succeeds in representing opinions opposed to his own, I can recommend an author called William F. Buckley Jr
COOL, DOES HE WRITE LIKE FUCKING DOSTOEVSKY?ANY BETTER THAN HIM? IF NOT, I DON'T GIVE TWO SHITS.

>All of the greatest artist have done art for art's sake

jesus fucking christ, and I thought this idiot would stop trolling when I left

>>2030075
Hey, man, I feel you. I'm the anon above with the big fantasy novel I wanna write - and I work sixty-hour weeks in a restaurant, my real career. I try to write at least ten hours a week, but I usually get in around eight or so.

When you're tired but you can't sleep, write.

When you wake up about thirty minutes early and you have a little extra morning time, write.

When you have a lunch break and a piece of paper and a pen in your pocket, write.

When you're waiting in line at the grocery store, look at the people around you. Pretend they're characters. Describe them, write about them.

When you're standing idle or driving, write in your head. Instead of daydreaming, think about plot and characters, come up with storylines and how you would write them. Try to describe your own scenery and setting in your mind as an exercise.

I've got a good memory, so I can 'head-write' and then transcribe it later, plus I edit it just in the process of rolling those words around in my head all day. It's tough, but if you truly love writing there's always a way to fit it in. And don't dismiss a few hundred words scribbled in twenty spare minutes as just fluff, not real writing - every time you put words down with an intent to convey something, you're writing.

Last but not least, don't rush it! Don't worry too much, don't think "I've got to get this novel finished in two years" or "finish this story in eight months". Every time you have a minute, write, but when you're busy and distracted with other things it's easy to rush yourself. Writing takes so much time and effort, nothing can be too edited, there's always a better way to put something. Just keep on trucking. I plan on finishing my story in oh, ten years or so. But it's okay! As long as I keep writing and keep working, I'll get there, and so will you.

At Christmas last year my dad told my big sister that she was so talented that it wasn't fair to the world for her to keep putting off writing a novel. At Christmas last year my dad told me to unload the dishwasher.

Ok guys here is what I do. If you want to be good at writing you have to read a lot and write a lot. So goddanm get on to it.
I am studying at the university, so I have to do a lot of stuff for this (project work, studying for exams, self study etc.). But I have to go by train to the actual campus. Its pretty much a 30min to 45min drive. So in that time I read. When I am at the university, I make breaks to get away from my actual work / studying. In this time, I put out the book I am reading right now and read for an half hour, before continuing.
What do you do when you get home? Browse 4chan? Watch series / movies / animes? Put that stuff away and start fucking writing. I printed myself a huge sheet of paper, where I wrote down my actual goals for the end of this year for my writing and some rules, like write at least 2000 words a day. Guess what I am actually doing it. Its just a matter of how you use your time. Stop wasting time with stupid shit and write / read.

And before you ask, yep I wrote my words for today. Sure its not like "Oh well I write when the inspiration hits me or when I am in the mood", but I sit fucking down and continue the story I am working on right now. Sure it might be shit, sure it might be bad, but without continuing to write I won't improve! Do the same anons!

I'm writing a fantasy novel. 45,500 words so far after almost 2 months. At the start I would write 2,000-3,000 words a day, but looking back the chapters I wrote at that time are weak and will probably need the most revision. I've been going at a fairly steady pace of 500-1000 words a day since then, and hope to finish the book before new year's.

>>2031054
That's good advice. Thing is, everyone already knows it. It's doing it that's hard. Good for you for actually sticking to it and working hard though. Me though, I'm still in that rut. And it sucks.

>>2030924

No, weakling. There's no such thing as writing well in the abstract, only writing appropriately. Dostoyevsky isn't a useful person for a 2011 writer to model, and that's the bottom-line.

we're all amateur writers here, but I'd hesitate to write 2000 words a day. That's a lot of words, and if you can't afford an editor to remedy the inevitable problems with them, you're screwed. Try for a lower level of 500-750, and if you've got more, write more. If you can get a career going, then write a lot, but for now focus on writing something good.

>>Leave thread in the middle of the night.

>>Wake up, run errands, get back several hours later.

>>Wake up computer.

>>Refresh all pages.

>>mfw this thread still exists.

Whoa! This was unexpected. Hold up /lit/...

>>2031546

There are about 5 people on /lit/ at any given time. This should not surprise you.

>>2030164

That could be the text to an "A Softer World" strip.

I love the sheer aggression directed at everyone who has posted here. An amateur, unpublished writer has asked for advice from people sinking in the exact same boat as him.
Our generation has no controversy to overcome or great depression to suffer through. Our generation is a product of the freedom that great men (including novelists) have given us by taking on society. Alas, we are left with little to no conflict whatsoever of our own, and conclusively our work will all be about apathy so long as it is satirical of ourselves.

On the otherhand, I like people. People are interesting. You folk, are interesting.

>>2031550

I like that way though. Thanks for the responses guys. I'll be getting back to everyone shortly.