[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 131 KB, 644x591, fizzy.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7031161 No.7031161 [Reply] [Original]

Who /strugglingartist/ here?

>> No.7031173

I'm more struggling than an artist. Finishing up my first ever book, a sci-fi novel.

>> No.7031178
File: 61 KB, 500x400, 1413690255266.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7031178

>>7031161
>struggling artist

Try struggling human bean

>> No.7031183

>>7031173
>sci-fi
Into the memory hole

>> No.7031192

>>7031161
lol th craftsmen are worse tbh lol nabokov you sad suck

>pic of salvador dali with ant eater lmao xD

>> No.7031202

>>7031192
>tfw I delete every other post because I write so shitty

>> No.7031214

>>7031202
You didn't delete it fast enough :^)

>> No.7031224
File: 972 KB, 1011x1304, playitagainsam.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7031224

>spend years practicing various skills to become a modern rennaissance man
>successfully graduate with a degree
>finally, it's time to go pro
>write smart, insightful books
>they don't sell
>draw online graphic novels
>no one reads them
>be poor and unknown
>meanwhile some 11-year-old who posts crappy animu fan art has 15k followers on twitter and hundreds of comments per each work

It's better to try and fail than to never even try, right?

>> No.7031226

>>7031224
>in a world of plebs the so called higher man searches for recognition

>> No.7031229
File: 10 KB, 400x300, 1422344069343.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7031229

>>7031161
Who /doesnt actually like their gf/ here?

>> No.7031238

>>7031224
It's fine to try and perservere but you have to be smart about it. Look at Henry Darger, spent his entire life writing a long-ass novel filled with complex illustratrions and when he dies his landlord's wife takes one look and says "ewww!" and decides to trash it all. Her husband luckily finds it and it slowly becomes famous. Imagine how many lonely, borderline insane guys have done a similar thing, retreated into a world of childlike play to escape brutal reality and created some work of art possibly worthy of attention, only to have it be rejected and rejected and then discarded following their death or hospitalization. This world has no place for true art. It is a cold, brutal place populated by a swarm of cold, brutal people who see life as not much more than a struggle for the tallest tree in which to build your home. Luckily however not many of us are true artists, not many of us will sacrifice so much to create something that is genuine and authentic and produces partly for fame but mostly because we understand the value of art. Unfortunately however most of us aren't going to make it. We're weary from our shitty jobs, or our brains force us to sacrifice our self-awareness and sanity as a defence mechanism towards a life that will torture us should we be too aware too often. We are the useless scum of a degraded society, but if we put the right words in the right order we will earn all the recognition due us as virtuous and Christlike individuals. Armageddon can't come soon enough.

>> No.7031240

>>7031238
The unexamined life is not worth living, bro.

>> No.7031243

I'm 30 years old.
I've written three unpublished novels.
I just have a handful of reviews published to my name.
I'll write maybe five novels over the next ten years.
I'm not sure if I'll ever see anything published.
:(

>> No.7031248

>>7031243
I'm 19 years old.

I am handsome, smart, athletic and virile.

I have a novel that is in it's final editing stage, and a creative writing professor at my college has read the first draft and thinks it's saleable.

I have a girlfriend who is confident, articulate, playful and spontaneous.

I have a small group of interesting friends from different social and academic backgrounds, and I also have many other acquaintances who see me as a reliable source of humour and good company.

Both my parents are alive and in good health.

I have no regrets.

I have already experienced three existential crises, the latter of which was described as having the depth and profundity of a man twice my age.

I am a passionate lover, a sharp thinker, and a trader of witty repartee.

I am not self-pitying, meek or needlessly humble.

I will live a good life at your expense.

>> No.7031254

>>7031243
Do you have a job?

>> No.7031258

>>7031248
>19 years old
you dont even know bro

>> No.7031261

>>7031254
No. I have schizophrenia.

>> No.7031264

>>7031248
Nice pasta.

>> No.7031266

>>7031261
How do you pay rent and who do you live with?

What's your latest book about?

>> No.7031271

>>7031266
I live on disability income assistance from the government. My latest book is set in the 1950s.

>> No.7031273

I just want to create something that can capture the feeling of being an internet addicted NEET in the 21st century

>> No.7031274

>>7031271
Where do you live?

What schizophrenic writers are you inspired by? If you haven't done your research then sucks to be you.

>> No.7031286

>>7031274
I'm not really inspired by schizophrenic writers in particular, though I like several. It's just a disease that I happen to have, and it's highly variable, so I don't really have much in common with a lot of schizophrenics.

I live in Canada.

I filled a folder that's 25Gb on my computer and two file-folder bins and I checked out about a hundred books from the library while doing research. There are historical inaccuracies that I had to put in for dramatic purposes, though.

>> No.7031294

>>7031286
Have you met gas-kun?

He posts here regularly and he's a 38 year old schizophrenic living in Kentucky who is also trying to publish.

>> No.7031302

>>7031294
Nope. I'm sure there's a lot of us out there.

>> No.7031304

>>7031302
What contemporary writers do you like?

>> No.7031307

>>7031294
is that where all those pictures come from?

>> No.7031314

>>7031307
Fuck off tripfag

>> No.7031318

>>7031304
I'm not sure how contemporary these are but: Alex Garland, Haruki Murakami, Cormac McCarthy, Patrick Suskind, Douglas Coupland, Michael Ondaatje, Chris Ware, Adrian Tomine. I've mostly been reading '50s stuff for the last three years.

>> No.7031321

>>7031183
What is wrong with sci-fi?

>> No.7031337

>>7031321
90% of it is manchild garbage, or in other words it's stupid vicarious-alpha shit for people too impatient and compassionate to appreciate the curiosity and subtleties of human existence.

DUDE JETPACKS LMAO

>> No.7031373

>>7031337
what makes a sci-fi story fall in the 10% that isn't "manchild garbage"?

>> No.7031380

>>7031373
It has some awareness of contemporary culture and the ability to discuss them in an interesting and humorous way. It has some wider frame of reference beyond sci-fi. The characters are not tropes or 2D cut-outs, i.e. they are actual relatable individuals albeit in a surreal world.

I'd read Philip K Dick and others before even putting pen to paper. Stuff like The Martian is pleb fodder and will never be considered anything but. Good sci-fi shows the author's genuine excitement about being able to construct his own reality, his compassion and wit in populating this reality with interesting characters, his intelligence in referencing aspects of the real world and historical events in a subtle way, and aware enough of the audience's desire to be entertained by inventing a genuinely interesting plot.

>> No.7031401

>>7031248
You can make better bait than this.

Also
>spontaneous

Spork-tier

>> No.7031407

>>7031380
so the sci-fi aspect should be a backdrop to a relevant human drama, as opposed to something that is more like, say, a gush about how cool technology could be (muh jetpacks)

>> No.7031417

>>7031407
Exactly. What kind of authors do you like?

>> No.7031438

>>7031407
that's actually a really accurate summary of good sci-fi. unlike genres such as "adventure" or "mystery", sci-fi acts as a descriptor for the setting rather than the actual plot.

>> No.7031448

>>7031161
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8klW9trVTQ

You mean people like the screaming guy in the video above, only in /lit/ form?

>> No.7031484

>>7031401
newfag detected

>> No.7031511

>>7031417
i haven't read much sci-fi but i'm set on getting some essentials and plowing through them within the next few months.
i've read a small amount of Arthur C. Clarke and Phillip K. Dick.

additionally i've started writing my own, but i dont think it has the legs to go anywhere just yet.

>> No.7031529

bless you all

>> No.7031534

>>7031229

Me. She's really nice but dumb and only reads Harry Pottet

>> No.7031543

>>7031511
Well you seem open and level-headed, which is a good start. I assume you've read other genres too but if not it always helps to have a more secure grounding in the canon.

Here's a useful link: http://www.philipkdickfans.com/literary-criticism/frank-views-archive/list-of-influences-on-philip-k-dick/

Allow your ambition to consume you and don't settle for anything less than what you know you're able to achieve. Being hard on yourself is a good thing but don't allow yourself to be paralyzed by self-distrust. Allow yourself to become as sensitive and self-aware as you can without going insane. This will likely result in your feeling unhappy and discontented but use the resulting hostility and restlessness you experience to fuel your writing. One thing I would also suggest is slow down when reading a particular chapter and imagine yourself reading it as though it were a draft of your own work. Imagine how the dialogue could have been a little different or even better. Look at comma placement and learn to judge the rhythm of a sentence and whether it links cleanly to the next. Open the book to a random page and pick out a single sentence and ask yourself if it adds anything, or if it's funny, or whether it can be excised. The best writers work on a sentence-by-sentence basis, the worst rely on a punchline every four sentences or so while littering their story with insignificant, vaguely humorous or insightful actions. Learn to hate bad writers, because in doing so you are also loving good writing and what literature has the capacity to achieve. All bad writers are turncoats to the ideal you should pursue, which is to articulate what appears to be ineffable. If you're going to write you're also going to have to commit to it. There are too many people who list writing a novel on their bucket list but fail to do so or write something only to say they have been published. There are too many people driving their oxen cart across clean pages. Embrace your contradictions and learn to accept them as an inevitable part of being a self-aware human being who does not settle for inherited norms and perspectives. Understand that writing is ultimately a futile gesture and will earn you no reward beyond the satisfaction of paying tribute to all those who have attempted to articulate our collective existence, and hopefully to inspire similar gestures from those who may read your work. Typing all this is also a futile gesture, but I mean all of the above and I hoe that if your decision is to write that you succeed in a meaningful way.

>> No.7031553

>>7031229
>tfw enjoying hanging out with my friends more than my gf

Is this what its supposed to be like?

>> No.7031619

>>7031543
thank you for the advice, i really do appreciate it. i have saved your post.
advice for writers sure can be daunting. i'm still not entirely convinced my writing isn't shit, or that i've started writing for the "correct" reasons, but you've got to start somewhere i guess.

http://pastebin.com/ESL3PjWv is my first attempt at writing anything in years. haven't had any outside feedback on it yet, i feel it might be a bit verbose, or just tedious and hard to read. i'd really welcome any critique if you can spare it

>> No.7031675

>>7031224
Webcomics are for children. Exclusively.
Books are fucking boring.
Should have gotten into writing movies like a true Renaissance man.

>> No.7031686

>>7031243
It's okay. As long as making the art satisfies you, nothing else matters. Recognition and publishing is always icing on the cake. If you can't learn to divorce yourself from the desire to be recognized, you'll never be a true artist.

>> No.7031694

>>7031553
New car smell fades and you've realized that you didn't select your mate on any real compatability criteria.

>> No.7031700

>>7031511
Pick up 'The Stars My Destination' and 'The Demolished Man' by Alfred Bester.

>> No.7031704

>>7031224
Perhaps your books aren't that smart or insightful ? Keep improving bro. When you're reached your limit it'll be time to say ou're underappreciated, until that, train like a motherfucker.
>>7031161
I'm struggling to abandon the idea of being an artist, does that count ?

>> No.7031715

>>7031675
>for children exclusively

You say that like it's an insult to the medium.

Judging by the behaviour of all the "adults" on /lit/ I'd rather write for children anyway.

You lot don't deserve the pleasure of reading.

>> No.7031731

>>7031715
You'd rather write for children because they're your intellectual peers.

>> No.7031783

>>7031619
Hey. I read your excerpt.

>Employee Leader Information Aggregation and Dissemination, or ELID for short.
Shouldn't it be ELIAD?

> the all-permeating fog that hung in the air
I would drop "all-permeating" as the density
of the fog has already been established

>into a cramped facility of this nature baffled Ramsey
Into such a cramped facility would be cut length and complexity.

>menagerie of positive
I don't the word is applied correctly. Menagerie usually refers to a collection of animals.

>The sudden address jarred Ramsey from the
The name "Ramsey" produces a distance between the reader and character IMO. It is clear that he is the protagonist, and through him we will experience the narrative. It is also used in the sentence before this, so a "he" would produce a sense of familiarity here.

>air of superiority
This is a cliche, which doesn't mean you should change it. But it is worth being aware of when you are resorting to a pre-manufactured image. Too many will reduce the quality of your work.

>His large hooked nose
Oy vey

>"You'd only hand me the wrong list again, you useless fuck" Ramsey quipped internally.
Quipped internally is kinda clunky. A simple "thought" here would suffice IMO.

>musing on the depressing fact
I would say "fact" and structure your work in a way that makes the reader know this fact is depressing, rather than spell everything out

But besides these little things that you'd probably pick up in editing, and which are probably just my own autistic preferences, I have to say I think your work is pretty good, and shows an ability to impose a scene. It's better than most of what I read on /lit/ at least, and I'm not saying this to be cute. Keep it up.

>> No.7031784

>>7031731
They're certainly better conversationalists than you >:^)

>> No.7031787

>>7031380
The status of trivial literature can be recognized by several typical attributes.

First: its works are read only once, just like the cheapest mass products which are also intended for but a single use. Most of them become obsolete in the same way as mass products do. If crime novels were selected according to their literary merits, it would be superfluous to keep throwing new ones onto the market, because we could find so many good ones among the multitude there already that nobody could read the choicest of them during his lifetime. Still, publishers keep on putting "brand-new" crime novels onto the market even though there are quantities of crime novels of undisputedly better quality that have sunk into oblivion. The same goes for refrigerators and cars: it is a well-known fact that today's models are not necessarily better, technologically, than those of yesteryear. But in order to keep going, the machinery of production must put new models on the market, and advertising exerts pressure on the consumers to make them believe that only the current year's models have the best quality. The dogma of continual change of models becomes a law of the market, although every specialist can distinguish clearly between fictitious obsolescence of the product and authentic technological obsolescence. Off and on there are real improvements in technological products. More often, change is dictated only by fashion, a dictatorship in the interest of profit by supplying new goods.

The entanglement of real progress and economic laws constitutes a picture of a situation quite similar to that which reigns in the market of trivial literature. On principle, publishing houses like Ace Books could put on the market science fiction from the first half of the century exclusively, in ever-renewed reprints, because the number of this kind of book has already increased to such an extent that nobody could read even the better ones among them, even if he devoted all his time to this genre. Printing new books, ninety-eight percent of which are miserable products, published for purely economic reasons, makes many older works fall into oblivion. They die in silence, because there is no place for them on a clogged market. The publishing houses provide no filter to bring about a positive selection, because to them the newest book is also the best, or at least they want the customer to believe this, the justification for the well-known total inflation of publishers' advertising. Each new title is praised as the best in the science-fiction genre. Each science-fiction writer is called the greatest master of science fiction after one or two of his books have been published. In the science-fiction book market, as well as in the whole market of trivial literature, we can perceive the omnipotence of economic laws. The literary market, moreover, has in common with the whole market the typical phenomenon of inflation.

>> No.7031789

>>7031787
(Cont)
When all books and writers are presented as "the best," then a devaluation, an inflation of all expressions of value is inevitable.

Compared with these carryings-on, with this escalation of advertising, the behavior of mainstream editors is quite shy and silent. Please compare the blurbs on the jackets of science-fiction books with those that serious publishers put on the jackets of a Saul Bellow or a William Faulkner. This remark seems to be banal, but it isn't. Although instant coffee or cigarettes of every brand are always praised as the best in the world (we never hear of anything advertised as "second best"), Michelangelo's frescoes and Tolstoy's War and Peace are not offered, with the same advertising expenditure, as the best works of art possible. The activities of the publishers of trivial literature make us recognize that this literature is subject to economic laws exclusively and to the exclusion of any other laws of behavior.

-Stanislaw Lem - Science Fiction: A Hopeless Case — with Exceptions

>> No.7031794

>>7031789
Third: the market of trivial literature knows only one index of quality: the measure of the sales figures of the books. When an "angry young critic" snubbed Asimov's Nightfall and Other Stories as old hat, Asimov put up the defense that his books, this year and for years previously, had sold excellently and that none of his books had been remaindered. Therefore he took literary merit for the relation of supply and demand, as if he were unaware that there have been world-famous books that have never been printed in large quantities. If we use this yardstick, Dostoevsky is no match for Agatha Christie. There are many fans of science fiction who have never read a novel by Stapledon or Wells in their lives, and with an easy mind I can assert that the silent majority of readers does not even know Stapledon by name. Blish and Knight agree that the public cannot distinguish a good novel from an abominable novel; and this is correct, with the proviso that they are talking about only the readers of the Lower Realm. If this generalization were valid for all readers at all times, we should have to consider the phenomenon of cultural selection in the history of literature as a miracle. For if all or almost all readers are passive and stupid beings, then who was able to collect Cervantes and Homer into the treasure troves of our culture?

>> No.7031902

Trying to get into alt lit
I realize starting a twitter account is probably the biggest factor but I guess I'm going to start off in the local scene - where I can actually see what I want out of lit (some pussy and recognition)
I went to a reading thrown by a figurehead in the local scene and judging from what I heard, I'm not bad
I bought tickets to a workshop for next month, will probably try to get involved in the lit crawl next month (on alternative masculinity apparently, an interest of mine) or at least network there

Writing is something I plan on making money from during 2016

>> No.7031972

>>7031173
finsihing smth is already better than most here

>> No.7032026

>>7031248
>I'm 19 years old.

you sure are

>> No.7033132

>>7031783
thank you! i have made some changes based on your post.
your encouragement fuels me for the journey ahead.

>> No.7033177
File: 92 KB, 448x557, 1422643785672.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7033177

>>7031161
Nope, I'm rich af tbh fam. I only write because I like to. I rotate between writing in a major third-world city, working interesting jobs, wandering in the wilderness, visiting academics I met in college and partying with the global jet-set. My sex life is mainly nailing rich girls from Wellesley and Harvard, and I've knocked up a 17 year old model while we were both high as shit on amphetamines. I only care about publishing my work because I think people will enjoy it and to stick it to an ex who didn't think I could make it.

>> No.7033193

>>7033177
I hope she got vacuumed.

>> No.7033248

>>7033193
>not sacrificing a small portion of your fortune to breed the ultimate human specimen
You're not gonna make it.

>> No.7033265

>>7033177
What the hell do you write?

>> No.7033273

>>7031902
>alt lit
>(some pussy and recognition)

kill yourself

>> No.7033281

>>7031619
>>7033132
It's shit mate. You'll never make it.

>> No.7033300
File: 1.04 MB, 2192x1220, laguna.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7033300

>>7033265
Super dank postmodern lit about American pioneers, immigrants, the military-industrial complex, sailing, North Korea, bizarre murders and the unrequited love of a teenage girl bringing a man who thought he was self-actualized to his knees as the world ends and he reverts to pure emotional response.

>> No.7033312

>>7033300
changed my mind and don't believe any of this but nice digits

>> No.7033319
File: 13 KB, 480x360, bloomface.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7033319

>>7033312
Not sure why a description of unpublished work that I won't show you is the incredible part, but sure, believe what you like. I try to tell cool stories on 4chan and this is pretty much always what happens. So much cynicism, smh.

>> No.7033328

>>7031248
I read this over a year ago. That should make you at least 20 by now, no? Something seems off about this post...

>> No.7033345

>>7031161
Somebody give me the rundown on government aid in the US. What programs, how to get aid, how to keep aid, etc etc. 40hr/wk retail slave waves are not worth it and I'd like to give the NEET life a go

pls

>> No.7033365

>>7033345
You don't choose the NEET life. The NEET chooses you!

>> No.7033410

>>7031794
>>7031789
>>7031787
Thank you. Lem = based.

>> No.7033466

>>7033345
>america
>government aid
fake a mental illness or move to europe

>> No.7033487

>>7033466
Welfare and food stamps are a thing in America though aren't they?

>> No.7033506

i am but i only /lit/ for fun. im a metalsmith.

also i may break poverty this year!

>> No.7033508

>>7033487
To get food stamps your household needs to be at or below the poverty line, which right now is at $23,850 a year. As far as welfare goes, I think you need to be both impoverished and either senile, blind, disabled, a veteran, or have a bunch of kids to qualify, but I'm no expert

>> No.7033510

>>7031161
nah

>> No.7033542

>>7033508
I'm sure there must be a .gov FAQ about this online somewhere

>> No.7033563

>>7033542
you can start here:
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/programs/tanf

http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap

good luck, my man

>> No.7033654

>>7031161
Protip: being a struggling artist only works if you actually create art.

or if there's a socialist revolution spearheaded by the intellegista, but we all know how likely that is.

>> No.7033661

>>7033654
struggling shitposter just doesn't sound as edgelordian

>> No.7033843

>>7033248
Breeding is for plebs.

>> No.7034043

>>7031173
Noice m8
Planning to start writing my sci-fi draft pretty soon as well.

>> No.7034797

>>7033273
I think every writer should get involved in their local scene to at least help get their work out there
More than necessarily having a bunch of people read my stuff, I'm intetested in comnecting to similar minds through live readings and getting to know them personally, and yes getting laid
I've just started pursuing a local author

>> No.7034823

>>7033654
>socialist revolution
>spearheaded by the intelligentsia
lol