How's the writing career coming, Yea Forums?

How's the writing career coming, Yea Forums?

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Haven’t heard back from the publisher yet. I can’t imagine how much easier it must’ve been when companies would at least have the decency to send you a letter of rejection if they didn’t like your work

I’m an excellent writer but I don’t have the creativity or willpower to write a book. What jobs could I still do? Tell me about your experiences with technical writing, freelancing, etc.

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My latest piece received two whole (You)s on Yea Forums so I guess you could say I'm doing pretty well for myself.

why don't you find out

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The word "career" has an interesting etymology (pic related).

If you imagine that what you write somehow defines your "career," then you are no more than a wheeled vehicle, your words the soil on which that tire-tread is worn.

But who's driving it?

You can become a vessel for others without ever owning yourself.

When you do, those who want to steer your cart become enraged, often.

Steering your own requires a discipline that is beyond mere words, though.

We write all the time, though.

With each utterance, in each moment, we write ourselves.

Our careers are our lives, and we speak them to others with word and action.

Everybody's writing career is going exactly as they need it to be going until they figure out how to wrest control of the handles on that cart.

Here's hoping that they find meaning in what they write.

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Im almost done with my book and its literally gona be the next got/eragon

Slowly but steadily. Making mature progress on my novel. I'm more engaged with the themes, am reading secondary sources for material, and am writing in a somewhat more disciplined fashion. My first drafts, though painfully slow-going, require a lot less editing than before.

You have a choice: you could dedicate the next two or three years to becoming a better [whatever the fuck is tangentially related to literature], or you could dedicate the next two or three years working on the craft of writing. The former will be productive but dissatisfying, the latter will be productive and satisfying.

And what would you do if it were?

Presume for a moment that the dream coalesces.

With whom would you share the riches you imagine having from such a transaction?

And how much control do you have over that?

So many writers have had the sudden realization that their wildest dreams have come true, but they have no idea how to make the things they're trying to write enough of a reality that they'd know what to do with the riches.

Because outside of the imaginary universe you have created is the one in which you were there to be able to create it, and if you could have changed it to the point where you're pleased with things, you'd have never found the inspiration to see a better one that you could write.

It doesn't mean that you are conscripted to being beholden to that world, though.

That's probably what you already know, though, because you are a writer.

Keep writing.

Pretty good. Got an article on a deranged West African dictator coming out in Quillette. I'm quite pleased with it, and I know it'll get read.

Bad. I have no idea how to go about getting stories published. I'm just blindly sending things to journals and getting rejection after rejection. Also I'm starting to think I'm just not smart enough to write the kind of thing I want to. Feels pretty bad.

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Also I'm counting down the days until I know for sure that I'm not getting into an MFA program, so that sucks too.

>I’m an excellent writer but I don’t have the creativity or willpower to write a book.

Then you're not an excellent writer.

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It's going decently for me. I get published fairly regularly. Don't really make any money doing it, but nobody really does with just essays and short stories. I'm trying to sell a book right now, haven't really heard anything though, have had a few queries out there for a few months. That's generally good though, the longer it takes for them to respond the better usually, it at least means they're actually considering it.

When I wrote my first book and tried to sell it, i'd get form rejections like same day or a few weeks max....that means I did something very wrong. At least I'm growing though, because I can go back on my queries and see exactly what I did wrong, and I'm even going over that book and re-writing it. I still stand behind the story, but the writing was really clunky and unpolished.

And nothing of value was lost.

Seriously dude....unless you're getting like a full scholarship or something, fuck that gay MFA program right in it's fag ass.

MFAs have to be the most useless thing on the planet. If you want to be a writer, start writing. That's it.

Btw, I was told that advice by someone with an MFA. Personally if somebody lists an MFA on their bio, i see that as being strike one against them.

When you read modern lit magazines, and see the absolute deluge of complete unreadable shit and then you realize that ALL this stuff is written by MFA holders, you really get jaded with it. I have no idea what the hell they teach people in these programs, but i really think it does way more damage than good.

MY DIARY DESU LOLOLOL

GET IT. MAN, I AM FUNNY.

Journalism or marketing/PR

I've given up out of shame

>be me
>won a short story competition for writers in my home region back in 2015
>I was intending to return there from another country to start a Masters at the end of the year
>award ceremony was mid-year
>boss let me work from home for a week back home that week
>collected the award but ended up not moving back that year for the Masters
>told the organizers a few months later over email
>offered to give the prize money back
>they said I hadn't broken any rules but I imagine some of them think I'm a con artist
>moved back two years later
>still struggle to read a book without thinking about his
>can't bear writing another word
>imagine if I'm ever published and do well people would out me or my Wikipedia would read "returned to [region] in 2015" which wouldn't be true

I've fucked up big time here I know. I should have just been honest at the time and not considered a week's remote working as being equivalent to being "based" back in my home region. I think about it every day and since becoming a published author is no longer an option I'm just drifting towards suicide.

Cringe

A professional shill would suit mindless drones like you, it'll definitely pay you handsomely so you can get distracted till you approach your death

What's the best Literary Magazine to be published in? Is aiming for the New Yorker when your a young relative novice really reaching the moon?

...what the fuck are you talking about?

that's an idiotic question. There's no such thing as the "best" lit mag. It's subjective. At this point in your retarded little life you should be happy getting published anywhere.

What do you mean?

I can no longer muster the conviction to write and potentially publish fiction, because without being able to explain myself in detail a lot of people will assume I'm some kind of conman who lied to win money. It's my own fault, but still I just don't feel good enough about myself any more to consider myself worthy of being published, well-reviewed, read, etc.

I LIKE MORROWIND

Uh...yeah sure man. You're probably right, you better just quit.

Where do you guys get critique for your writing?

Of course they're not responding to an unsolicited submission. You're meant to get an agent first you silly goose.

Some publishers do accept unsolicited submissions. Although, it's not very good odds if you submit directly to them, and you'll probably get royally screwed without an agent. But hey man, he's on Yea Forums, he knows what he's doing.

Nowhere. I write and write, and rewrite and rewrite until I'm totally happy with it.

I'd personally advise against taking critique in general, unless you actually know the person doing it and have some sort of respect for their knowledge of writing.

The dumbest possible thing you could do is take criticism from some message board where you have no idea who the people critiquing you are, or even a writer's group where everyone else there is just as dumb and struggling with their writing as you are.

You got to develop your own feel for what's good firstly, that's not easy. You got to read and think about what you read a LOT, before you even determine what you like. Don't take other dipshits advice on what is good, discover what you like, and what sort of things you want to write. Then....you got to learn to write those things, and only you can teach yourself that.

I got another review for my screenplay
>original, imaginative, viscerally intense and richly cinematic, which makes it an intriguing Western script worth developing further, although it's worth noting commercially this may be a tough sell. While the script has no glaring weaknesses, it does not yet feel at its full potential, and could benefit from some more work on the aforementioned issues.
but the issues that they gave were that it was too philosophical, the main character could be more intimate and vulnerable, and there's no developed female characters. considering how it's loosely inspired by Blood Meridian there is literally nothing I can do with those notes that won't castrate the script. I guess I'll write another one with a strong female main character...

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Sounds great user!
While not perfect, it is the perfect time to hone your craft!

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thanks bloomer user

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>Albert Camus
>Albert Wheeled Vehicle

>You have a choice: you could dedicate the next two or three years to becoming a better [whatever the fuck is tangentially related to literature], or you could dedicate the next two or three years working on the craft of writing. The former will be productive but dissatisfying, the latter will be productive and satisfying.
what the fuck did be mean by this

>identifying a writer instead of a businessman

That is why you fail

>Albert Camus
>Not Albert Carrus
Did you by any chance frequent a special kind of wheeled vehicle during your school years?

This is either a master troll or the heaviest example of Impostor Syndrome I've seen in my life

Agents are the best critics

They may not be right 100% of the time, but 90% they can tell if your writing is shit or not

You aren’t gonna make it. That’s a good thing. Find a job you like, make a home, fall in love. Life is worth living. Think about the greatest writers. They gave everything for their craft. The chance for a house and a wife, to someday see grandchildren. They gave that all up for immortality. And people who have never lived, will live forever. Your life is worth living.

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>people ask how I spent summer
>I tell them trying to write fiction
>'writer' becomes social identity
>I resent this, haven't finished anything
>writing's just something I enjoy
>don't want to be that guy who refers to himself as a 'writer'
>label forced upon me beyond my control
>actively dispute it with no success
>reputation spreads
>people say so you're that writer
>I haven't published anything for almost a decade
>start lying about how I spend my time to escape label
>'writer' becoming 'failed writer'
>just want to be alone

>I’m an excellent writer

Holy crap, you're me.

Take up boxing and tell people that you're actually the cage fighter

That oughta shut 'em up.

I blame OP’s shitty font renderer

>That is why you fail
>at being a businessman

>and there's no developed female characters.
Shit like this is unironically the reason I stopped trying to be a writer about 6 years ago. It's clear you're not getting published unless you bend the knee and force racial diversity and stronk wymyn into your stories. Completely insane, want no part in the industry at all. I ended up going to law school and now make more money than I ever would have getting an MFA and teaching at some shit tier school while trying to get published forevermore.

Maybe I'll wait until all this anti-white guy shit gets stale and pay for the best agent out there to shill my novel. Seems like that's just how it works these days.

Is it wrong to write something they will like just to get my foot in the door?

that means you may have written something good but it's too expensive

they said it could be made with a moderate budget

>there is literally nothing I can do with those notes that won't castrate the script.
don't listen to them, you just gotta make the good stuff even better until the strengths overshadow their quibbles

Yo, what’s your email? I have a friend who’d be interested in that.

Also if you can find a way to send it to Mel Gibson, do it. He’s usually down for that shit.

REEEE i have tons of ideas but i can't write for shit

Idea guys aren’t shit

I really want to be a poet and fiction writer. I’ve written some short fiction and that has been my pursuit for the past two years, but some great poets I read this year have inspired me to start taking a stab at it. Right now I’m trying to write a poem that is from the perspectives of various characters at the end of Moby Dick, upon first sighting the white whale, or maybe it’s an “alternate” version that could have happened. Kind of like each stanza is a different character’s voice, I want to have Ishmael, Queequeg, Stubb, Flask, Starbuck, and Ahab each “speak.”

I also really want to do an MFA (graduating bachelors in December) but I think I would want to do fiction because I’m not very “with it” when it comes to poetry and I’m sure I would be out of my depth.

>send it to Mel Gibson
is it easy to send scripts to people?
[email protected]

I was partially joking, but it sounds like something he’d make.

he probably posts in /pol/ but if you are reading this Mel send me an email

What do you mean by impostor syndrome?

hm

Im almost finished my first novel, 70,000 words
Im not expecting it to get published, just gonna go the self publish on amazon route since its free and then shill my book on reddit

I did submit a short story to a magazine, got rejected but the editor said it was a fun story and that I should try again

I've started smoking, drinking, washing my hair less frequently and wearing second-hand clothes (most notably, a full-length tweed coat). My writing is embarrassingly bad, but these are early days.

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He's saying don't focus so much on being a "sci-fi novelist" or "screenwriter" or "poet" etc. Just focus on writing itself.

Write a review of your favorite album.
Next time you take a shit describe the bathroom in a note on your phone.
Write a Haiku about your shoes.
Write a short story about the gas station attendant.
Whenever and where just write. You'll get better at the craft and will find it rewarding in and of itself, whereas if you're focused on a specific kind of writing you're more apt to get frustrated.

A career in the arts doesn't mean it's your job. It's just a means of expressing yourself.

Just write the shit you wanna read. It may not be published now, but in 20-30 years you could be a king.

>reddit spacing
>forcing yourself to say gay and fag to try and fit in

k, whatever gay fag.

Fuck I hate people like you so much. Victim complex much retardo?

underrated