/write/

Pretty much the only reason I write is because of the great feeling I get when thinking something new. Self-esteem plays a role for not sharing my stories, but in general I don't care enough what others have to say about it. Criticism is important and writing in isolation doesn't help development of style or ideas.

>the only reason I write is because of the great feeling I get when thinking something new
This was enough to get me by for a long time, but now I seem to be craving to just hold a book in my hands that I wrote. However, I'm very far behind in actually attaining that goal.
> isolation doesn't help development of style or ideas.
This is the wall I've currently hit. Need to flesh out more of my own personal style, and I might need to backtrack into the 'imitation phase' in order to find a more effective system. It's a process, after all.

I'm not writing anything, and it pisses me off. Other than journaling which i do for myself anyway, I have no idea what to write about.
My life over the past two years has been more interesting than Kerouac's "On the Road", yet I feel like it is a pretentious thing to write about. How would I even start going about that anyway?
I need to get back into volunteer journalism. I enjoyed that immensely, and got to travel around writing about interesting shit.

after a week of doing writing prompts on /r/writingprompst to build up my confidence I went back to my second novel last night.

It's turning out okay but I'm frustrated how much funnier my first novel was. I guess it was that in my first novel, the MC was a weird girl with a common sense deficiency instead of her straight-man companion, and the third person didn't make an effort to understand her behavior

On the other hand, maybe it was just the mindset I was in when I wrote it that pushed me forward

How do I improve my prose boys. What makes prose beautiful. Like I want to have a poetic sensibility to my writing.

Rewrite it thirty or so times. But actually it helps to read it aloud and you'll be able to catch where it doesn't flow. Good prose has a certain melody to it. Pay attention to sentence length and what connotations your words carry.
Figured out my issue. The "voice" sounds too campy in some sections and it's not unified. Redoing everything for a sad/delicate/beautiful vibe to the prose. First chapter is fixed.

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Early 2017...
A fifteen year old Muslim girl named Sara lives in a province of Syria that’s controlled by ISIS. Everyday she toils to care for her bedridden, dementia/cancer laden grandfather. She never knew her father and grandpa tells her that her mother died sometime in 2004 in Iraq shortly after Sara was born. She’s forced to wear a full burqa when she goes out and after she’s almost raped by a some inbred fuckstick, she uses the Silk Road/dark web/black market to purchase a collapsible .308 with a suppressor and 100 rounds of subsonic ammo. This gun here m.youtube.com/watch?v=OwBMG_F-5EE
The. Proceeds to wage an “enemy at the gates” style sniper war against the caliphate (after studying YouTube videos on long distance shooting/sniping) while also caring for her delirious grandfather who has fits of PTSD about his time as a sniper fighting against the soviets during the 80’s. His rants also reveal the secret that Sara’s mother was the secret identity of the elusive and deadly “JUBA” sniper
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juba_(sniper)
that killed numerous US service members during the Iraq war. By being crafty and learning to hide her weaponry under her clothes, Sara plays a deadly game of cat and mouse with ISIS as she hunts for blinds and evades patrols.
Tentatively titled “the sixth pillar”
Writing chapter two as we speak. It’should be done by Halloween.

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What was once the overflowing stream of ideas has become the watering hole for ephemeron fantasies, built in the sky for collective orgasms, pleasuring for a bit only to provide the most shallow enjoyment after the tumescence - detumescence process had worn all the organs of thought to a soggy, pulped mass.

An excerpt from Impendum.

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no matter how much i utterly hate this idea i still cant help but know deep down that you're still going to make millions off of this garbage

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>she uses the Silk Road/dark web/black market to purchase a collapsible .308 with a suppressor and 100 rounds of subsonic ammo.

Don't go overboard with the realism buddy it doesn't always pay off.

Goddamn it. I swear to God we made these at the exact same time. I'm gonna link this thread in mine and let mine die.

>yet I feel like it is a pretentious thing to write about
Why? Also, nice quads.

I ended up adding a chapter between 1 and formerly-2 to correct an imbalance in pacing and add some more depth to the setting and characters. They traveled for 8 days, so instead of writing it off with a sentence to summarize it in passive voice I thought this would be more interesting. There are two minor conflicts in the chapter, at the 3/4 mark and at the end, the first they get lost and the second they have an argument with an escort sent to meet them at the city's outskirts. I still have wordcount to play with--I should be over 75k now, and it might end at 80-85k, up from 60k which was, as user said, too short. Revisions never end, but I feel a lot better about it now.
If nothing else, it means these threads are a hit. It's good to encourage each other--I think it increases everyone's productivity.
Don't know if it's good as it's not my area of expertise, but it's more interesting than a poem about stupid flowers or something. Are you doing an entire story in that style?

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From duplicate thread.

>Your tenses are actually pretty good, so dont sweat that too much. I didn't see any really glaring errors as far as tense goes. Didn't see any really glaring errors period, honestly.
Oh good, I always worry because the sentence sounds off.
>It reads a little amateurish, but that will improve with practice and further reading.
Felt very satisfied at the end so this is definitely not a one time thing.
>Narrative wise, it was very good if a little confusing in some places.
I wasn't taking this very seriously at the begining (which explains the retarded and cringe name Javier Bombadus). I also thought of the ending when I was writing it and had to go back to the begining multiple times to set up some minor details that proved to be extremely important later on. There was even a small rant about his micropenis (d-d-definitely n-not self-i-in-insert haha) but I got that out it made my eyes bleed.
>The crows killing the cat felt like a bit of a cop out honestly.
Yeah sorry about that. I didn't see a viable way for the mc to kill a giant cat. Plus in my own hack mind it tied into the crows warning him about the cat.
>I really think Javier should bury one of his lances in the cat in a final act of fury and defiance.
>Since you've focused on his newfound will to live, I would add something about the exultation of victory or something to that effect.
You're absolutely right. It was once again a easy way out for him to just go back to writing the letter. This great advice I hadn't even thought about the aftermath or even the character's reaction to the event, at least not in depth.
>The ending is perfect, gave me a good laugh.
Oh thank you

Thanks for the feedback user.

I intend to. I found my early writing was shit because all I had been doing was spewing useless exposition. So, relying much more on dialogue to paint the picture, I'm giving it the old college try. It's at the very least shaping up into something I could stand reading again weeks later but my concern is that the style is unsustainable. We shall see, I have more if you would like a second glance.

It just has to be quiet. And for the region it would be easy to get an SVD dragonuv with the suppressor and ammo

Then drinks are on me as we drown our shame

>she uses the Silk Road/dark web/black market to purchase a collapsible .308 with a suppressor and 100 rounds of subsonic ammo.
Stop. Some 15 y/o is going to order an extremely modern and expensive set up like that over the internet? Or from some random goatfucker in Syria. That's silly. You want to write about an operator operating operationally then do that, dont try to shoehorn your raifu into a story about your waifu. It's an active warzone, just have her get a cousin or whatever to buy some beater ass rifle with an optic. I recommend a beater because of the sick Grandpappy. Where is she going to get the money for a sweet ass expensive rifle?
Sniper rifles do not need to be quiet. It is incredibly difficult to pinpoint where a single shot originated from of its further away than 50 meters or so, and as a guerilla sniper you should be firing once and then bailing the fuck out. Theres a reason the US Army developed a multi directional microphone antenna called the Boomerang during OIF.

Thank you, Mr Clancy

Luv u 2 bb

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How long should a chapter be? The last thing I read was the fucking Worm meme and it's got 15000 word "chapters" so my senses are all out of whack. Is 2000-4000 words an acceptable length for your average chapter?

I think on average most chapters do fall in between that.

Bump. I enjoy these threads.

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I am working on writing a post-transhumanism science fiction story. I keep getting distracted and writing unrelated erotic fiction though :(

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Why dont you just work in the erotica?

I guess that's because the authors I like don't really use sex at all, so I don't see it as being a good addition to a story that isn't designed from the ground up to be about sex. If there are any relationships at all they take place off screen. I just feel adding explicit sex turns whatever you're writing to pulp at best.

I feel you. It can be done tastefully, or just done well, but it takes a lot of skill I think.

She was blindfolded.
What she could not see was the very essence that fulfilled her imminent desires. What was to transpire was not a component of a spatial rendition insofar as vision unravelling in the swirling midnight memoria she could only remember from her former embraces. It was the temporal strain that flowed as past and future colluded in the moment. What she could not see fully defined what was.
Her breasts were bare and seemed to glean against the candle light with a perfect intensity to anyone that should see. Her legs were entombed in high wasted lace pants, their darkness not quite enough to prevent eyes from envisioning such statuesque beauty: the smoothness those appendages shone, the incarnate pure roundness of her bottom and finally, the gazing render encompassing the mouth of venus. The perfect apex atop those legs was uncovered; her lips fully waxed right through to the mountain top, that is she had pubic hair above the vagina that brought real and appreciable definition to her being as its whole.
But no one was watching and no one had ever saw.
A virgin she had remained and how she preferred. What she was doing was only for her alone to gauge and perhaps to acquiesce, for she wished for a partner: someone to delve into fermented desires, but she knew to give in was to remove a part of herself that she could not regain in her order.
She knelt down and gripped the artificial shaft. It was firm but almost soft in a way, like a strum of a lyre that gently recourses its sound to ears unwavering. As she took it in her mouth, such mental functions arose to a chemical resonance not cleansed by mundanity of her placement within the system. She gave it sweet kisses and caressed its length up and down before taking it to her throat. As her desire arose, she felt wetness stream from her vagina and thus, slowly she removed her lace trousers to her knees. She started by rubbing her clitoris sweetly, smiling at the lush emotion unravelling before her. Taking her right hand from the shaft, which was now quite wet, she placed it behind her and inserted the middle finger into her anus. Immediately, her essences constricted around her, radiating a lush gaze of cosmic serenade. Her muscles relaxed as she continued suckling eagerly, her right hand alive to the river that her vagina gave, her left to the resistance that her anus bore.

I am currently writing about a young man's struggles with mental illnesses, which include various psychoses and dissociative disorders. It will critically explore the nature of communication between individuals over various mediums as well as provide my own commentary on the modern condition. Instead of whole chapters, the book will be presented in the form of journal entries which recount the lad's deepest thoughts and experiences.

I enjoyed this. I'd like to read more even. For science, of course.

I have the overall story planned, but to wildly varying degrees of depth depending on the section.
I have the arcs planned out, and a substantial portion of the subplots, but I tend to plan bigger picture stuff in advance, and fill in the gaps from there. This approach has allowed me to avoid the indirection of my previous attempt at this while allowing for more depth and variety than things that I've planned in detail.
As for the ending, I have several different ideas but am not sure which one to go with. The finished novel is probably going to be around 300k words, so I think I need to write more of the story to comfortably settle on one.

I'm not sure I want to make a thread about this, but what would you call this belief in what makes us "human"? For example, giving into one's desires to the point of doing pretty horrific things might be considered "inhuman", but they're still human. There's this belief that "humanity" is some ideology. What would you call that?

Moralism?

No, it's specifically this idea of what makes us human. It's not quite humanism, is it?

It depends. Literary novels have longer chapters but best sellers have really short chapters, because it's less intimidating to plebs. Anywhere from about 2-6k is a good compromise imo.

I have the last 60% percent of my story down and pat but I'm having a really hard time writing the beginning. It's strange, I generally use the momentum of the story to guide me through it. Does anyone else have this problem?

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Try starting later than you think you need to. A lot of the stuff you think you need at the beginning is probably unnecessary.

This. I feel like although my story had a very natural starting point, I would much rather add more on the beginning and make minor adjustments to other parts of the story than to cut things and find a way to fit the important developments and points into later text.

> Want to write
> Everyone who I'd basically copy-paste already said everything so much more eloquently

why even bother

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How do you think they got so eloquent?

Writing is better than being a wage slave.

This assumes my writing is good enough to be somewhat commercially viable.

They had IQ few standard deviations above my 90 IQ chicken shit trash brain, I assume.

I would rather try and fail than not try.

I've been advocating recently for night shift security work as the most Yea Forums job, especially for writers.
>work nights so dont have to deal with anyone
>only ever have to watch a gate/walk around once every 2 hours
>work 3 12 hour shifts, have 4 days off a week
>spend the majority of the time reading and writing, have grown exponentially since I started
>hardly ever get checked up on by boss, and I'm just reading or scribbling so everything is g2g
>my company is basically footing the bill for me to become a better writer
Best part is that if you have a pulse and a clean record you can get hired, no problem.

What are some other good jobs for writers?

night shift is very unhealthy

I am currently trying, but i don't think simply trying to avoid wageslavery is sufficient motivation.

Starting my novel. Spent the last week outlining it, doing some research for it, and scheduling when i was doing what, for how long, and when. And then I gave myself some goals.

Right now I've got a few beta readers lined up in a few months, and talking with an artist friend for artwork, and a cover, and saving up for an editor down the line.

I work in the stock rooms of a small department store. I do four-hour shifts and I can mostly finish the work in less than an hour. We're allowed to have phones on us, so I use it to write or do other things. Sometimes I just lie down in the back of the one stock rooms and do nothing for my whole shift. The pay's bad, but it's an extremely easy job and I like my boss.

What's it about

It is for me. I want to be a writer, but part of me knows I may never be good enough. But I would rather spend my life trying than doing something else. It allows me to have hope for the future, even if I know success is unlikely.

That sounds /comfy/. Will they hire an anemic 110 lb girl (female)?

Just a collection of short horror stories. Nothing major. Figured I'd have something for October just to start getting my stuff out there.

What was unhealthy, for me, was working at a job I hated and had no future in while letting my ultimate dream, being a writer, wither and die. I popped pills, put on a bunch of weight, stopped exercising entirely. I took a pay cut to work nights, but I'm so much happier and fulfilled because I get to pursue my passion. I have a family so NEETdom is out of the question, but this is literally the least amount of work you can do and still be employed. We're a little tighter, sure, but the change in my mood, health, and overall attitude have done wonders for my marriage. I'm also sober, and have dropped 26 lbs in the last 3 months.

You can combat the negative effects of night shift by reversing the normal flow of a working person. I get off at 5, and I hit the sack as soon as I get home. I wake up between 12-1, and get my ass outside to absorb some sunlight and fresh air at least one hour a day. I feel better than I have in years physically, and my mental state has done a complete 180 from where it was 8 months ago.
Sounds like a pretty chill place.
Sure. You're not there to fight or chase anybody. You just observe and report. It is max comfy, and they wont put a small woman anywhere near the ghetto so you wont have to worry about any potential nuisances (i.e. crackheads, teenagers, etc).

lol i cant even get into uni or work, too fucking dumb and useless for both. i wish i had job i hated

I don't think I'd maintain the motivation to do what I do without that dream, but were it the only influence I wouldn't have bothered to begin.

>You just observe and report. It is max comfy
Sounds pretty nice honestly. I'm glad your job is comfy, friend. Thanks for post.

>want to write
>"but I have to study"
>spend the evening online instead
>"well, I'll do both tomorrow"
>end up doing neither the day after as well
Help me. I beg you.

Just start right now. Just write anything, even something terrible that you will delete after. You just need to establish the habit of writing every day. Just write 50 words.

I wrote 85 words and I feel better with myself. I wrote a stupid but interesting incipit for something I can work on tomorrow at least. Thank you user, really. I love these threads.

Great job.
If tomorrow you lack motivation to continue your work come back here.

If you can commit to writing every day, you can write a novel. It's hard sometimes, but you need to be able to write even when you don't want to.

Is writing in another language a stupid thing?
I find myself more often then not using english in my thoughts, even though it's my second language. I know that I can never master the language the way a native speaker can, but for some reason it feels more comfortable to write in english. It may be due to the habit developed by writing in this place, or maybe it's something more akin to the sensation of dancing with a mask on; that odd feeling of not being yourself that translate into not hearing your voice while you write.
Whatever the case, is it a stupid idea? Does someone else do it? Nabokov did, but I'm not Nabokov so that's not a great example.

Related question: if the suggestion is to write in one's own native language, shouldn't it be better to read only translated books instead of reading them in the original language?

I hate my native language and would never write it. Whenever I even utter it I feel nothing but contempt and disgust.

definitely will, just reading the post can be all the necessary motivation.
I know, but even that ends up being hard sometimes. But you are right, and I will do better.

>I know, but even that ends up being hard sometimes. But you are right, and I will do better.

You can do it. When you do miss a day, the most important thing is to start again the next day. Don't dwell on missed days, just keep writing.

Really user, who gives a shit what language you write in as long as at least one person (you) likes it. English is my third language and just like you I'd rather write in english (and also think in english) than in any other language. Maybe you're right and this is a consequence of having spent so much time on Yea Forums or on other english communities but it doesn't really matter.
> is it a stupid idea?
No.

What good stories do you have from your time traveling? That's a decent place to start. An experience you had that helped you grow and change your perspective is important and writing about that to me at least is worthwhile.

Also, what is this volunteer journalism? I always look for opportunities to actually have to write as I've struggled setting a daily routine for my creative writing given complications and obligations in my working life.

> 30 years old, never had a job, never got accepted into any school in 8 years of trying, no friends. The worst is being a perpetual disappointment to those that bother to help. Tomorrow is yet another day he will have to disappoint those people. He had spent entire decade failing.

This is a WIP named 'My Blog', haha

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True that, but maybe one would be better souited to "improve" than the other? I think I should try both and see what can come out of either. Hell, maybe translating a certain expression of a language to the other could provide a bit of flavour to the text.

As the saying goes, whether you think you can or you think you can't, your right.

Yes I know I sound like a pretentious pseud, fight me.

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>you're*
please no bully

I have a bunch of them, but life in general has been rather absurd for the past couple of years, not just particular moments.
>Moved from my hometown to my country's capital, worked shitty jobs
>my paycheck was low to start, and late frequently, had to steal from supermarkets to eat
>the company fell apart, was jobless
>got into journalism writing for a local music portal as it gave me a chance to write and actually be read
>spent the next year traveling to festivals, selling acid as a source of living and writing about them gonzo style
>got involved in the local underground scene, helped organize freetekno and trance parties in the woods. Lots of acid involved
>needed a job so got one as a bartender in a rock club
>became homeless just before winter for reasons out of my control
>couldn't find a place to rent, insane demand in the city because of all the students moving in
>got in touch with people from the trance parties, moved into a squat (abandoned building occupied by hippies, punks and whatnot)
>lived there for a couple of months, first on the mattress on a floor with a bunch of people, then moved to my own room
>met hundreds of people and travelers from all over, had a bunch of interesting experiences
>it was kinda fun to be able to go downstairs to a punk gig barefoot in your pajamas
>saved a bunch of money by not paying rent
>decided fuck it, I'm off somewhere, I'm living out of my backpack anyways, got everything i need
>fly almost 2000km's to London, UK
>get a job here as a bartender in 2 days
>currently sipping Wild Turkey and typing this

This is the abridged, insanity-deprived version of events.
I feel like I have an interesting story to tell, but I don't know how.

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Also, to answer your question, it is basically writing for a news portal, in my case a music themed one, without getting paid. I did get free entry to any shows or festivals I wanted to go, and people apparently did read my reviews and liked them, so that was good enough for me.
Got into it over a friend who signed me up as a photographer to a few shows.
He bailed for one, but I was still on the list, so I asked the editor if i could write a review. He said go for it, and it started from there.

Not bad at all man. I've been borderline homeless a few times, lived in a car for a year, worked-for-rent for a year and a half. I have the worst luck getting jobs. You sound a lot more outgoing than me, though; I just don't want to be bothered by anyone.

you'd probably get that published with the right slant.

>you'd probably get that published with the right slant.
You mean it? Man, that means a lot. I've read somewhere that writing about your life, unless you did something truly remarkable, is a waste of time as everyone thinks that he has a great story to tell.
I just know mine has been filled with absurdity and that life has been throwing me around a bunch.

Not sure how to start it honestly. I really don't. There has to be a point as well i would assume. I have none.

first you have to be a good writer. most narcissists who write about their lives are shit, and their lives are melodramatic nothing-burgers. i think selling acid and living in a squat house is more than the average normalfaggot would have experience with, and it appeals to modern publishing trends. i mean, why not give it a shot. when we make fun of diary desu posters it's because they're boring basement dwellers who have never done anything interesting.

it does actually have to be good, though, and you will need to tear yourself apart and find the meaning to it all. BEE Less Than Zero, No longer human, etc. Study how they did it.

Nothing.

Thanks user, your post gave me a much needed foot up my ass to get moving.
I have a story I'm dying to tell, and I'm going to try and tell it.

>BEE Less Than Zero, No longer human, etc. Study how they did it.
Will give them a read. Just stole Less than zero and sent it to my Kindle. Thanks.

Working on my second novel. Currently 40k words in. I don't expect it to be any longer than 60k words. I completed my first novel at around 120k words and even found a beta reader for it, but when I read it now I'm embarrassd by it. I suppose that's a good sign and I can recognise improvement. Anyway, here's some stuff I wrote earlier just for fun. I don't expect a critique or anything, I just want to share some writing. I like these threads and always think they're more relaxed than most others.
pastebin.com/uQUDUFWf

-random journal entry-
Darkness shrouds the hotel behind those electric lanterns and pillars of golden, artificial lights illuminating textures, leaving uninvited shadows in spots and segments. Some fanatic insect chirps away, desperately trying to get laid, like me, my nest is a different one, my song entirely unheard. I wait patiently with no plans or urgency to spread my seed and procreate. I seek love and divine entanglement, false, I seek nothing, I seek this edible, breathing moment; in any form it arises. That young boy of nepalese descent approaches my table excitedly, he shakes my hand and asks with some mixed sign language if I brought my band with me, I told him no and he had difficulty understanding, but pointed to my room and asked in? I assured him it was in my room and made it clear with body language that I would not be getting it any time soon. I loosen my neck and relax my shoulders back, joining at the spine, raising my skull via neck, hanging by invisible cord. Beard itches, rather the dry skin beneath my beard itches, so I scratch it. Perhaps I should shave this thing. In my dream I had nothing but a mustache. Maybe before Jackie arrives I will shave my head and beard, leaving only the 'stache. When I say, "I" will, I mean some Nepali or Indian man will do it, I think the barber in Rishikesh is a safe bet. Number 2 on the top, blade to the cheek. Waxing moon teases me from behind a shroud of jackfruit leaves. Two Indian men approached my table in hopes of sitting here as I was inside ordering, without planning it I had left my bottle on the table, effectively marking my territory as claimed. They looked at the bottle confusedly and looked back at me approaching and realized it was my bottle, my table, my workplace. Far back, full view of the path, the front door and all the action going on. I watch as workers ramble about, sometimes rushing with a dish but never properly attending to the guests. No concern for lighting candles, no menus on tables, no return visits. That’s fine, they do it their way and it’s easy like that and it works. My bladder is screaming to be emptied or it’s that same kundalini blockage. I did just spend 30 minutes massaging my cock and basically edging without a pornographic or lustful influence. Before that I meditated for a short time, unable to keep still, moving and bowing, stretching and praying. A bit before that I showed a Nepali boy named Reya how to use the rings a little and he complimented my body gratuitously. Apparently I have a perfect body. The outdoor toilet is occupied but damn do I have to piss. I might just sneak off to the shadows. Or I wait patiently and observe this sensation. I feel where the pressure is, I know where the pinpricks go. Ok here’s my chance and I’m back, pissed and free. Still there remains some discomfort or some sensation of yearning beneath my balls, before my ass. Study this sensation, breathe into it, squeeze it and release it. My pasta is coming.

>pastebin.com/uQUDUFWf

Overall, it's competently written. However, it's all just a character remembering things and giving backstory. It's essentially just one long exposition dump. If you want to show that he has a difficult sexless marriage, then show that through interactions with his wife. Rather than just having him say so directly to the reader. Most of your story, especially at first, should be things happening. Not just people remembering things happening.

You should also name your protagonist at the first opportunity. It makes it easier for the reader to organize information about them.

Good advice, thanks. I'm usually much more rigorous with stuff I'm serious about. I probably won't write anything more on this, it was just something I wrote in one session. I might work on it though. I never delete anything I write, you never know what you might return to.

So much revision work. Keep /write/ing everyone.
t. a mildly productive drunk

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The revision work is basically keeping me from completing anything.

Don't get perfectionist about it, just do it to the best of your ability. You can always write more in the future. Osamu Dazai perfected his ideas over the course of writing numerous short stories before he finally wrote No Longer Human. No one gets it right the first time.

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mega.nz/fm/gXBC1QLB
I wrote this as my final for literature, what do you guys think?

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I'm nearing the end of my first draft and it was a lot longer than expected; 600 pages, like 150k words. My workflow has been steady, but I've made critical plot and canon changes along the way that will make the second draft a nightmare.

End your chapters where they should logically end. They can be short or long.

lolz, read pride and prejudice next, chapters are like 2 pages. worm is a fucking web novel.
anyway i haven't found anything stipulating such a matter, so i suppose do whatever you want.

I'm writing a book of wisdom. Here's a sample:

Don’t take people’s opinions seriously because they’re irreverent.

I remember talking to a racist waiter. I was upset at first then I remembered that he’s a middle aged guy fetching coffee for someone’s half his age and begging for tips every day.

Mean twitter comments? Don’t forget it’s some lonely incel spending his Friday night playing video games alone while normal people go out to socialize and have a good time.
The most important aspect is what are you doing TODAY to improve yourself and add value to the world. Ignore the NPCs, what they do with their lives and their opinions are irreverent. Waste no time “debating” with a pleb, you’re wasting your precious time.

K-POP fans are cringe. Not people who casually listen but “hardcore fans” that follow K-POP news, call themselves “stans” and argue on the internet who is the best group and “she is my bias”.

Since they lead boring and insignificant lives, they use K-POP as an outlet to feel important: “fan wars”, YouTube comment posting, excessive obsession with their idols.

Your hardcore K-POP fan is like a Japanese dweeb: poor hygiene, physically unattractive, mild mental illness (in fact, many K-POP fans were former Japanese dweebs)

I did it for like 6 months, except i worked 6 nights a week. Probably 4 a week would be much better. i had to quit because i started getting awful migraines. Also, i was never as productive as i meant to be. Did get a lot of reading and art stuff done though. Glad you like it nightowl user.

You might want to look up that word in the dictionary.

Re-write:

Don’t take people’s opinions seriously.

I remember talking to a racist waiter. At first, I was upset and then I smiled. The middle aged guy was fetching me coffee every day (and begged for tips) while I sat down and enjoyed leisure time playing cards.

The twitter troll? Probably an incel spending his Friday night playing video game and masturbating, wishing he has a girlfriend or friends to hang out with.

What’s most important: you! How are you improving yourself today so you can contribute to the world.

Yeah I meant to write irrelevant

Congratulations, you somehow managed to make that even more retarded than it was in the first place.

Nah I'm good my nigger friend.

I'm an autodidact and I am compiling all of my knowledge into a blog. It covers science, math, philosophy and my own personal take on metaphysics.

>writing
>use a word I didn't know I knew
>look it up
>not only did I use it correctly, but I also spelled it correctly
What's this feel? Where do these words come from? I can only imagine I must have read it somewhere years and years ago and somehow it resurfaced exactly when I needed it. Anyway revisions are going well and I'm still mildly drunk.

Catalog has been awful today. Laid on the floor and thought about how we understand and express sentiments and if two people can ever really convey their meaning as intended. I wonder if true understanding is possible between human beings. When we hear something it ricochets off the internal machinery of our minds that was formed over a lifetime of unique experiences and solitary ruminations, so wouldn't it be that two people never take the same statement the same way, and all the less could one broken being convey their feelings with shaking words to another and have it arrive whole.

The act of writing may be entirely in vain, but I still want to write. It's an insane optimism. Even the writer most mired in despair must be an idealist at heart, because they still have hope that their words will carry everything they meant to say.

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Give me a dummy mail.

pastebin.com/djjiBHWL
I'm drunk, please don't take advantage of me.

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No.

Make her actually raped by chapter 6. No masking: every look, every smell, every loathesome detail of the three "Uncles". The most evil chapter. This is psychological realism. The creation of the Punisher.

No uber weapon, please. NO uber weapon. She must be a vulture of war. At most, clones from Kyber Pass, but stops using them because the imperfect barrels compromise aim; fears chamber explosion.

Learn neat tricks like boosting phone signals to trigger bombs while she cycles to give lunch to brother's madrasa.

Sending Googlemaps coordinates to UN email.

Halfway through her campaign, marry her off as someone's fourth wife. This is increased cover, esp if he is an Associate of a brother terror group.

Same poster as above.She must not stop being at least nominal muslim.

Uber weapon found only at the last chapter, to close the novel.

Oye pendecho

This requires a login.

yes and i'm dying
docs.google.com/document/d/1ifZpvTFOniFGpZYje1me-J9sGjizjQnKFxpUHus90QQ/edit?usp=sharing

A novel about tormented, undead incubi/succubi forced to roam for eternity and dependent on society for sustenance a la vampire lore (sexual lifeforce and fluids replace blood). I'm struggling to write it tastefully given it will of course have to describe the turning of, uh, young people, and my lexicon is too underdeveloped to write it consistently sensual without devolving into pornography. It's probably suicide to consider it

>Sexual life force
Libido?
>Fluids
Specific pls. Seminal, digestive, tissue...?

So... Your vampires steal sexforce and semen?

>Probably suicide
It's sidecide. As in, youre killing mine.

still my diary. this are getting good as of late since I've been off weed for a while. I hope this slowly leads to cutting of masturbation too (have gf)

Not all of us have highlight reels.

>Your vampires steal sexforce and semen?
Yes, what else?

Here's my general idea so far: period setting, at least initially. Set during some kind of renaissance and there's boom of society and abundance. Our incubi protagonist wanders lustfully from city to city, town to town, seducing beautiful young women and gorging himself on their bottomless sexual energy. He's troubled from past experiences but is lost in bliss in the current age, years turning into decades as he fucks his way around, perpetually handsome and youthful as ever. Eventually he settles in a small farming (or fishing, haven't made my mind up) town into a lull. He falls in love, at least what he can only describe as love given his supernatural state, with a young widower. Unlike all the other women who he's consciously been careful with and left unharmed to not rouse suspicion, his hunger in this case leads him to take the widower's life one fateful evening, inadvertently draining her lifeforce through the womb. He disguises the corpse and flees in shame and guilt, mostly pertaining to his nature - he after all dreams of being a mere man and settling down.

Shortly thereafter, almost in response to his deed, a plague reduces the societal abundance and glow to a husk of pain and misery. He's drawn back towards the town he fled, for the widower had a child who he once dreamed of as his own and he feels responsibility for her outcome. Alas the young girl is stricken by the plague and on the verge of death. Seeing no alternative, he decides to save her life: he turns her by his supernatural seed. At once this is a mistake, as the now turned succubus doesn't heed his caution nor respect for the people their kind relies on for sustenance. The young, angelic succubus exploits the turmoil of the plague to leave a wake of bruised, depleted-dry male corpses in her path. She projects herself as older and only when the men are to climax, does she reveal her true self. The men can only suddenly scream, eye's bloodshot and wide, "But you're just a chi-" before they're sucked dry in equal convulsions of ecstasy and pain.

This all leads to a state of paranoia among townspeople all over, making their scare sustenance (due to the plague) even scarcer. Eventually, whispers of demons begin to spread among the people, and the girl is captured while attempting to feed. In his weakened state, our protagonist, now having the demeanor of a decrepit old man, is unable to save her nor even reveal himself for fear of capture. The girl is sent to the stake by the town. But not just any stake, no, for the succubi weakness is that of animal forces. For to feed on the carnal lifeforce of the beast is to wither and die a horrific fate. Tied down over a cowskin-covered log, the girl is the receptive for a massive purebread bull, which in its mating rut is the epitome of Satan's stallion. The town spectates with glee, blaming the girl not just for the many dead but also for the plague itself.
(Cont)

Eventually, our protagonist is spotted in a failed feeding attempt and hunted and captured by a nobleman. The nobleman experiments on him, noting over the years the resilience to natural ailments and death. Our protagonist is left locked up, fed chickens which offer just enough nourishment to survive but not nearly enough beast to kill. The call of the morning rooster is pierced only thereafter by the squawk of the chickens being fed on, thrust after thrust. The nobleman taunts the incubi about this.

Haven't figured out much else.

>Haven't figured out much else.
Scratch that, what my idea is, the nobleman wishes to become an incubus himself, and forces the protagonist to turn him in exchange for his release.

age? you could easily write something from all of that just by changing a few key details if it feels to much like an autobiography

>Its probably going to be around 300k words
How do you know that? Is that your goal?

Sounds like you just don't want to put in the hard work and effort it takes to produce something good.

Every great artist spent years sucking before they made anything of value. Every great line written by an author grew from the compost formed from the decayed corpses of thousands of discarded lines.

You first have to suck before you can get good. If you are to afraid to suck, you are will never achieve anything great. Just get it over with.

In the Japanese game of Go they have a proverb that goes: "Lose your first one hundred games as quickly as possible."

If you have the energy and time to whine and complain, you have the energy and time to do something about it.

Finally, and this is the last piece of practical advice since aphorisms have their limitations: Read "Sybervision - Neuropsychology of Self-Discipline".

If that can't help you you might as well kill yourself, no one cares about you feeling sorry for yourself.

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Alright i'll run with it.

Is this incubi a creature in itself, or a diseasehost, or a controlled-mutation human?

I have problems with it A) not being part of its own larger society B)feeling remorse C) him retreating to the countryside to lay low.

Willing to accept that bestiality is death, just to INb4 furfags.

I actually agree with the point you're making as well as most of your advice and I am generally motivated. I was just being a pedantic cunt about the image.
It's a rough estimate based on how far along I've gotten in telling the story with the words I've typed so far. My goal is for the story to be as long as it needs to be whether that's 100k or a million words.
I dont like word count as a metric but it's the best way to express my progress to others who dont want to read walls of text about my planned events and charachter development.

Please recommend some books for writing stories and screenplays.

I was looking at The Anatomy of a Story by John Truby and On Writing by Stephen King, but from the looks of it they don't actually say how to make something; just examples of what already made stories have(commentary on content vs instruction.)

The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Is furshit inherently worthless?

I have grand plans for sprawling stories about complex characters, but they're all furshit. Not necessarily porn or even erotic, but I end up believing that because furshit is so lowly regarded I might as well make them porn anyway.

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Lots of fantasy and scifi novels have anthropomorphic animals. Some of the Culture novels even have them. As long as it's not cringey furry porn it should be fine.

How do I put the first words down, friends? It was so much easier, so long ago. I must seem silly, simply sitting and staring at a canvas. I wish I didn’t care so much.

Just start anywhere, don't worry about writing the beginning first. Write anything, even if it's terrible. At first, the quality of your writing isn't your primary concern. Establishing the habit of daily writing is more important.

P L A N

did some good writing last night but im still not happy with my lack of humor. the one real joke I made fell flat hard and the interaction I tacked on at the end to remind the characters of their situation wasn't great either, especially not the light ending

the joke was originally supposed to be that the religious mother-figure saying grace before dinner was supposed to sound like a monster-fucker lusting over angels covered in eyes and fire, but I couldn't find a way to shoehorn it in so instead I tried to get creepy and graphic with the Eucharist metaphor, but the mixture of cannibalistic-sounding descriptions seemed really jarring when the premise is that they're eating a rare feast in the middle of a famine. Im considering changing it when I get home so instead of sounding like a cannibal she just sounds like she wants to rail jesus

I mean if it's just anthro animals then you're fine. Like it's very common. Redwall, for instance, is incredibly beloved, and I used to read these really goofy scifi novels called the Fleet series that had Catfolk as a major race and it was pretty dope. Furshit is cringey because of furries, not because of anthropomorphic animals. You can do a lot of cool stuff with it, so go wild.
Lace up them Nike's my man and Just Do It. You can always come back and revise it if you need to.
I mean, Jesus was pretty jacked, according to paintings and whatnot. You could have her talk about Jesus's rippling muscles inappropriately during the prayer maybe?

that's the plan. im just hoping it will be funny enough. Ive got a lot of good characters, and Ive written them to their full comedic potential before, but this story is making it kinda difficult for a reason I don't understand

literally how. planning also requires putting that damned first word on paper

Speak my fucking language, my fellow words-on-paper dude.
I’m personally at a stage I know I need to start putting notes down, but I must have developed autism or something because it’s hardly how easy it used to be.

your pseud nym fuckin sucks

For each complex character
>CONCRETE goal? (no abstract shit, although the concrete goal can be motivated by abstract shit)
>flaw that stops him achieving the goal above and beyond plot obstacles?
>lesson that he has to learn before he can overcome his flaw?

For your main plot and all subplots (you should have some subplots unless you're writing something out of the ordinary, and the subplots should interact with the main plot).
>inciting incident
>developments
>crisis
>resolution

The plot should teach the lesson.

There, you've just done a rough outline of your novel.

Identifying plots: a plot is a character pursuing a goal. Where you have a character pursuing a goal, that's a plot. Subplots can either be secondary goals of the main character, or main goals of secondary characters.

Now just list the scenes from beginning to end that you need to write to tell the story. Pic is from a dumb transformers fanfic I was gonna write. As you can see, Thrash (the main character)'s concrete goal is to get his memories back; his flaw is that he can't relate to or make friends with his autobot captors because of his sense of grievance against the world, and the lesson that he has to learn is how to incorporate the psychological trauma that he suffered over the course of the war and move past it to get on with his life instead of returning to being the unhinged maniac he used to be.

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What do you guys /do/ with your writing? Do you just write and leave it to yourself? Do you publish anywhere?

Has anyone here ever made any money with your writing? I'm not talking about bestseller numbers, just curious if anyone has made a few bucks or not.

>implying I write
But seriously, I stockpile it for the day that I am famous and can release even my shittiest early porn works so that people will meme about my fetishes like they do Nora's pungent butthole, and also to give succour to all the young litnerds who will just be beginning to doubt that they'll ever make it by demonstrating that even I was shit at one point.

horribad

>Write something I feel isn't complete dogshit
>wait a couple of days
>reread
>it is worse than dogshit
>stop writing
>reread 3 months later
>so fucking bad I feel the need to erase any trace of it ever existing
Writing sure is fun

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>write something that i think is good
>reread it the next day
>think it's shit
>abandon the project
>reread 3 months later
>"this is great, why the fuck did I think this was bad?"
>consider restarting the project
>don't
kill
me

start with getting coldturkey or chrome web blocker. block Yea Forums, youtube, facebook, reddit, and all porn sites you can think of. all of these things are completely unnecessary to life. I would say get off your computer too, but you probably use it to write

user, you just need to build up momentum. make a goal to do a bit of flash fiction every day for a week or two - minor stuff you don't care too much about - and then get back to writing. Its easier to keep writing than it is to start

Worse
>Write 50 page novella
>Entranced by it, think it’s amazing
>Take a break from writing
>Read it again after a few months
>It’s garbage
>Delete it in a fit of autistic rage
why am i like this

>Has anyone here ever made any money with your writing?
I once sold a short story to a relative for 5€ I don't think I could ever hope to get more than that

I have. I've sold short stories, poems and non-fiction over a number of years.

I'm working on some of the pseudo-science in my story, mostly from a biological standpoint; trying to figure out whether I should substitute 'spirits'/'spiritualism', as a lazy way of justifying an organism's ability/process of nuclear fission within something entirely organic and primitive. I know that if I go down the wrong path then it will (in the future) impede how the theme of instability/illness caused by overheating will affect one of the more important characters. I'm feeling pretty conservative about it, though; I don't want to remove the spiritualism factor entirely from this character and his race, because he's been conceptualized this way for so long. I do have a moth-balled idea however, that I could reshape to help sculpt the narrative into the way I want it to be.

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We should have a "you have to reply to someone else's request for feedback before you post your own/critique someone else's work before you ask for critiques" rule.

Everyone would be guaranteed to get feedback that way, and that works out well for everyone.

I dunno lol.

I mean if this general is going to be a regular thing we could put it in the copypasta at the start.

most of the posts aren't asking for feedback though, there's another thread for that.

Will do.
mediafire.com/file/yta6avhvt3n9k0p/A_Mugging_in_Berlin.docx/file
You need to space some things out. In the start of your short story you mention the Protagonist has and keeps having panic attacks. I've never had one, so I don't relate to this passage. Can you describe it in detail how it feels, maybe give us some scenery to chew on as Celia walks in with the lunch or in the cab.

You make refrences to greek monsters, maybe go with that metaphore a bit more. She's talking with her mom about the scale of her projects, and about how they're draining her lover. Paint her like a knight in shining armour or maybe as Athena helping odysseus.

Either way you've given a big twist of symbolic imagery in the start. Does he truly resent her on some level due to how she spends his money?

" Celia already did our orders and one of them casually dressed ‘hey hey I’m just like you but with an apron and a conditioned can-do attitude that would make even sociopaths flinch servers came out of the woodwork with our food. I was incredibly intimidated by his shining white smile and his air of positivity." Is there supposed to be an apostrophe after flinch? Moreover you mention how he feels like the waiters eyes 'seduce him', why is that? Can you describe why the character feels seduced rather then imtimidated or nervous, with how you described his interaction with the waiter earlier?

Overall its' good writing, but it needs a clean up in grammar, tone, and imagery.

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So I'm writing a story about a guy who wakes up to realize he's completely alone in the world and starts thinking about why he's so scared and bothered by it when he was such a loner when everyone was around. I've been thinking about adding a part where he sees a beaten up hedgehog eating as a reference to the hedgehogs dillema, the hedgehog makes him realize that even though we might get hurt by reaching out to other people it's better than to never reach out.

bro, nice Pobedonostsev pic

the last part is not that good, and it's already the main thing of evangelion

Right now I'm stuck because I can't write a stabbing scene unless I get the exact details of how it would go down, including recovery. Seriously considering going to reddit to just ask in some medical board or whatever. I really don't want to ask a real life doctor because I live in a small town and get the typical "What's your book about, user?".

Shit you're right, thanks. Gonna put it down somehow differently.

if you really want to use the metaphor, there are many things that repel or hurt those who get close, like magnets, cactuses or trap music.

just write "this is the part where he gets stabbed" and move on, then come back to it later with an anatomy book or after some research

There's a very specific set of mental images I'd like to connect and adapt into prose. One is children finding a mutilated corpse in a field, a police man doing paperwork and a man being chased by the police and when he gets caught he turns into leaves. There seems to be a very specific connection to them but I can't seem to find it.

Shit I love that trap music part. Mind if I use that?

Seems like some mad old detective or criminal recalling a very specific murder case with some dream like sequence. Could the autumn of life/leaves connect the things?
it's all yours my friend

Injury protip: they're not that complicated.

If stabbed in a limb, the blade tears the skin and muscle open. If it's deep it might skitter or chip off the bone (or, if the angle is just right, lodge in the bone). If it cuts an artery, gushes of blood and dead in 30 seconds. If it doesn't, a welling of blood that tapers off. To treat, pack the wound with gauze if deep and then bandage tightly.

If stabbed in the abdomen, it will penetrate the flesh and thin muscle and then either miss or hit an organ. If it hits an organ, lots of bleeding and death in a few hours. If it hits the digestive system, your abdominal cavity is now full of infectious acid - extreme pain and massive infections, 100% dead if not for modern medicine. If it hits the lung, difficulty breathing. If it hits the heart, massive bleeding and no pulse. Watch out for ribs: they can deflect a blade.

How people die: brain loses blood supply (or is destroyed). That's it. To diagnose the severity of an injury, ask yourself what the mechanism is by which the injury deprives the brain of blood.

>recovery
Stop the bleeding.
Put the tissue back together.
Fix the problems (punctured lung? slap a bandaid on that badboy so you can keep breathing).
Let it heal.

Medicine is very straightforward once you break it down. Your brain needs blood and your body exists solely to make that happen. Your stomach exists to digest the food you eat to create the material your body needs to maintain the mechanisms that give your brain blood.

The way to treat any injury is
1. keep the blood inside
2. keep the blood flowing
3. keep them breathing
4. fix organ damage before it becomes a problem or solve the problem (e.g. dialysis machine)
5. help it heal

So if I get stabbed in the shoulder on a night walk
>does it hit an artery?
No
>lots of bleeding (but not arterial bleeding amounts), pack and bandage the wound as best you can then stitch it shut

/rambling disjointed knowledge

A rocket propelled dragon has motivational issues so he goes to scale mountain to ignite his warriors spirit, the story is the journey along the way.

Oh yeah, recovery times

>massive injury (almost died on the spot)
Immediately after it: totally out of it
First week: totally out of it
Second week: weak as hell
Third/fourth week: starting to feel better
Second month: starting to move around but still very weak

>major injury (stab to organ)
Immediately after it: totally out of it
First few days: feel worse
After the first few days: weak but starting to feel better
After a week: starting to move around but still very weak
After a month: still hurts, still weak, but functional

>minor injury (stab to limb)
Immediately after it: feel like shit but lucid
First few days: feeling a bit better every day
After a few days: starting to move around but still weak
After a week: still hurts, still weak, but functional

>superficial injury (deep laceration)
Immediately after it: ow that shit fucking hurts
After a few days: moving around, weak and hurts but functional

Yeah because there also one image that's a boy and a girl saying goodbye to eachother and the girl gets murdered. I believe the cop is the boy (now an old man) who's remebering his childhood because similar things have started happening in his home village.

A short story about a reality TV show inspired by Love Island, where the contestants get trapped in an alternate dimension/time loop and cannot leave the show. At one point old contestants who were eliminated come back, initially as themselves but later as Frankenstein-esque mashups of different contestants body parts.

That was really helpful, seriously. Thanks a lot.
My guy is getting stabbed in the stomach, will be bleeding a lot and passing out quickly. I'm thinking no organs hit, but maybe nick a vein or artery. It's in modern times so he'll get help immediately, so I guess it would be survivable.

This is actually really interesting. Are you writing about it or is it a writing prompt?

I came up with it cuz me and my gf watch a lot of reality TV, kinda shut-your-brain-off entertainment. The whole reality TV concept is really weird to me, and kind of invasive and strange in how it makes actual humans into characters for the morbid enjoyment of others. Plus love island just lends itself to it. They're isolated from the mainland, constantly watched, people can leave or come back at any time, etc.

That rule works very well for critique threads where the investment required for meaningful responses as well as the conduciveness to those contained within posts, but we arent /critique/. I think for these threads such a rule would lead to a flood of low effort responses from people wanting more engagement with their own posts.

contained within posts are both very high*

I think we just need to encourage engagement and discussion, not try to enforce silly rules. These threads are already starting to become more lively and personal, so we're on the right track. I personally believe we should keep things loose and relaxed.

A short question in the OP would be neat. Something like "Do you have any romantic relationships in your current project?" or "what makes a good fight scene?", "walk us through your average writing session" Just simple stuff to get people talking and engaged.

I'm already starting to recognize some regulars, and am very active myself. I dont post any of my work because I write longhand for my drafts (for no other reason than I cant ever get into a good flow typing, I always end up here, or on NormieBook, etc.) and nobody wants to see my ridiculous handwritten nonsense, but I absolutely love reading people's stuff and talking with other writers. These threads are max /comfy/ and I hope they do become a long term thing.

That's too bad. If you ever write about it could you post it here? The idea is really interesting but I'm not at all inspired (I'm also a lazy fuck and my writing is horrible).

Look up anatomy diagrams, specifically laying out arteries. One of the most artery heavy areas is the groin, so that might be something to look at. I'm not sure if theres any arteries in the belly area that are major; the big concerns with getting a gut injury is sepsis and internal bleeding iirc (sepsis being stomach or intestine gunk leaking into the bloodstream, real bad way to go, takes a lot of recovery time and has to be caught early). As for getting stabbed, it feels like you've been punched really really hard, then you feel some numbness before the pain of the actual wound hits you, which is a serious stabbing (lel) pain. Theres a moment of incredulity and then hysteria starts to set in, which is part of shock. If you have old boy get stabbed in the belly he'll probably pass out from shock even if fails to hit anything important. Also take into consideration that with most stabbings there are multiple wounds.

I'm thinking the external iliac will do, though I'm not sure if I'll mention it even if I just need to get every detail down. There would be a splatter or two when the knife is pulled out, right?

>I'm thinking the external iliac will do
I'm a little confused by this line, can you elaborate? As far as splatter goes there wouldn't be a whole lot from the attack, but the wound would bleed pretty good. There would be some blood flung from the knife when it gets pulled out but not a huge amount, probably just a few drops.

I meant the knife would hit that artery, which seems to be near the groin? And I'm reading that an artery wound would spray for a few seconds, but that makes more sense.
I'm probably being too autistic about it, honestly I was more worried about the recovery time being realistic but what you posted was really helpful.

Oh right, I got you. I didn't actually know the names of the groin arteries, just their existence (dick stabs are a meme in HEMA for a reason lol). You probably are, but this is how we learn new stuff and expand our repitoire. It's better, imo, to autistically research something you dont know anything about than to do like a some authors do and just ass pull it. Nothing yanks me out of a book quicker than a writer blatantly making shit up or worse, repeating some urban myth or fuddlore that's easily debunked with a 5 second Google search. I'd like to read your scene when you get a first draft up, if you wouldn't mind sharing.

At the very least I'm learning quite a bit about the topic, which never hurts I guess. It's an important part of his story so I really don't want to asspull it precisely because it's jarring when I read it.
Thanks, user, but I'm not sure when I'd be satisfied even with the draft, and I'm still unsure about sharing my writing. I write for myself as a hobby, so it's not even that good.

/write/, I'm writing again. I'm doing it every night now. I'm just not doing it well.

These scenes, the characters, the dialog, it's all so awful. It doesn't have to be, but the quality of my execution is suffering. I just don't feel satisfied writing this way

26
Could you elaborate what you mean by that?
That's my main issue, I don't want to write an autobiography as I'm definitely not that important, but I do have a story to tell, and I feel like it is interesting enough to read about. Not just the events I mentioned in the greentext, the ride was genuinely demented at points.

Nobody's going to rip apart your writing here unless you request it, that's what /crit/ is for. Peer review is an incredibly important part of growing as a writer, and I think we have a good atmosphere here to really offer that to one another in a relaxed, "Hey what if you did this or tweaked that" kind of atmosphere. I write as a hobby myself, writing the kinds of stories that I want to read basically, and I like to read stuff by other hobbyists. Theres not really any metric of "good" to adhere to, certainly not yet in any case.

If anyone wants to read some bad fanfic (non sexual just as an fyi) or some bad OC I can post some of my old work. I dont have anything recent because I've been too lazy to transcribe what I've written.
As I said above, try to get some peer review. Make sure to read a lot as well, and read actively. Try to figure out what makes something you like "good," and add that to your skillbag.
Why dont you make it fictional then? Plenty of authors have done semi-autobiographical works if literary fiction. Allows you to share your experiences while also allowing you to tailor it to a narrative.

But then they turned away as if it was my fault that I was absent.

What a pity, what a pleasure that my work had not been appreciated by the men who are the masterpieces of society; it is hard to enjoy anything except success in one's efforts.

In the end you must pay for everything.

At the present moment the man who's only going to play the game is he who does not understand his own strength.

But you're in fact making him a better player by putting the wheel in.

Of course I can't go back to playing chess.

The man who has a taste for chess has always played well.

That is, until something happens and he cannot stop."

At the end of the evening, when the children gathered around the piano, the mother, who was playing, smiled gratefully and said "I wish I could go back to playing chess--I wish I could go back."

>Why dont you make it fictional then? Plenty of authors have done semi-autobiographical works if literary fiction. Allows you to share your experiences while also allowing you to tailor it to a narrative.
In what way though? Exaggerate existing events or add on ones that didn't happen but would be more interesting if they did? In any case, not a bad idea at all.
Need to set a timeline first and do some planning. I have no idea how to approach this, that's my issue. I usually wrote short stories or journalism pieces.

Pic related while I'm at it. Lived on this mattress on the floor for a while. Next to me was a 50 year old movie director from South Africa. Got to talking one night when I came home from work. Told me his life story, and talked about reverse racism back home. Across was a Russian guy who didn't talk much.

Attached: lit2.jpg (908x681, 119K)

>If anyone wants to read
Just realized this is a cop-out, so fuck that. I cant expect people to take the leap if I'm not willing to. Here's some of the stuff I wrote last year
>inb4 AO3
Its non sexual and I really like the way the site's laid out. I didn't realize it was a smut site until I had already posted these parts.
>archiveofourown.org/works/13458117/chapters/30850770#workskin
TES fanfiction, about a Healer who is in the Legion and sees some serious shit. Probably the most fun I've ever had writing.
>pastebin.com/8MvwCysC
OC story set in a post apocalyptic US that /k/ came up with a few years ago. About some Marshalls chasing some killers.

Would appreciate general feedback, what y'all think of the writing, story ideas, etc.

I dont know if much exaggeration happens or not, rather moving things around or making events a bit simpler so they flow better. With a long work you want to have a theme and some sort of overarching meaning (not always but mostly) so making it fictional let's you put your experiences alongside the made up experiences of the character so you can stick to the narrative theme you want to convey. I'm in the same boat as far as writing things longer than short stories, so I'm afraid I wont be of much help there. A timeline would probably be helpful, and overall planning is definitely important.

I'm writing a diary, which I update when I woke up and at night after dinner/before going to sleep. It' being great for my productivity, writing process and life in general.

Besides that, I'm updating some details in my PhD articles (Chemist here), but nothing much.

Start your story from the middle, then, as the story progresses, you explain the background and motivations of your characters. Both Homer works starts like this and they're great literature.

I'm glad for you, user. A teacher is also a very good career for writers, because it gives you enough free time for your activities and many times writing is related to your job.

Depends on the type of teacher, but for high school and especially colleges I would agree with you. Earlier ages tend to be more time consuming because you have to cover a much longer period of time with the same students, as well as keep them engaged. My wife teaches 3rd grade and is looking to move up to 6th next year because the work load is bordering on too much.

His "Reflections" is a fantastic book.

>write something i think is good
>reread the next day
>pretentious, barely even intelligible
>sigh, drop it, write something new
>rinse and repeat
i hope to God practice pays off in the end

I had a southern gothic nightmare thing that was only at about 15k when I shelved it because I found I was getting too hung up on making every sentence perfect and stressing over details rather than actually writing so I turned my attention to the "sacrificial word dump"

The sacrificial word dump is essentially a novel writing exercise I devised where I put literally no stock into what I'm writing and just go until I hit my word goal. It's at around 35k now and I plan to continue it until it's around 80-90k. The funny thing is though there's no plot there's still a distinct voice with this project and I guess you could say variations on common themes and the whole book kind of revolves around my time in Central America and doing psychedelics as well as just dredging the depths of my head to just try and figure out why I think the way I do and it's actually been super therapeutic.

Always good to have a slush/dump pile you can just vomit into. Since you said shelved, I'm guessing you'll come back to your southern gothic thing? What is it about? What even is southern gothic?

I'm always writing fantasy stories, but always quit and start a new one after at most 100 pages. New ideas are always more fun than the last, and I rarely ever go back to the previous ones.
I would share a sample, but a few sentences are useless and more is not-done here.

post something anyway

What does it mean to write?

This is /write/ not /crit/. This is about discussing the process of writing, not critique.

Wrote a short poem today:

Who the hell wants a job?
I'd rather have a joint
With good company
To enjoy it

Who the hell wants to wake
At 5:30 everyday?
I'd rather sleep well past noon
And watch the evening waste away

Who the hell wants to slave
From when they're born until they die?
I'd rather be a penniless bastard;
A drifting cloud upon the sky

Is this a more elaborate "wagie wagie get in cagie"?

Yes, but Im a wage, so it comes from a place of bitterness and longing.

The rythm is weird. It doesn't sound too good (at least in my head). Sorry user. Maybe try making more of the lines rhyme?

Wagie wagie is superior to that poem anyway.

youtube.com/watch?v=zBVggGXGxxc

I'm writing a short story about 4 mercenaries that are sent off a fool's errand to search for a fabled person in a foreign, mysterious city. each one of them has different motivations and motives and they'll watch as a conspiracy unravels before them.

I'd love to post a passage but I'm afraid it'll be too cringy.

The first stanza (I think that's what it's called) ends on the short phrase "to enjoy it", but the second one ends on "and watch the evening waste away". Since the first ending line is so much shorter than the second one, it disrupts the rhythm. You should focus on making your verses more consistent with each other. I think you could even get away with having differing lengths between each stanza, but only if each stanza had a consistent length scheme that formed a larger pattern. So like short, long, short.

Thanks!

If you post some of it I'll read it and give you some feedback user.

I too struggle with having confidence in my own writing.

A few paragraphs is fine.

Democracy requires cuckoldry.

Revised. I hope it flows better

Who the hell wants a job?
I'd so much rather have a joint
A bottle of Seagram's vodka
And some good company to disappoint

Who the hell wants to wake
At 5:30 everyday?
I'd rather sleep well past noon
And watch the evening waste away

Who the hell wants to slave
From when they're born until they die?
I'd rather be "a lousy bum"
A drifting cloud upon the sky

NEET, the poem

I wrote this @ work

I started to cried when Maria walked into the apartment. Our home, now, mostly only in title. In her arms, stretching plastic bags filled with groceries, noticeably light. For months we both have been steadily losing weight, but Maria seems to have taken the worse. I’ve watched her tender plumpness sink into her bones like a sponge drying in the sunlight. Still, her beauty remained. Strange that it no longer had any emotional effect over me. She stepped into the kitchen, dropped the bags on the counter, then returned to where I sat stone. The smell of fresh bread slowly filled the airy, seemingly growing apartment. It nauseated me. For a brief second I thought of my old life. The thought struck me to get up and retire to the bedroom, cocooning myself under the faux-down comforter, and releasing myself into sleep. But part of my subconscious gave in to the present, as if resigning to what I was experiencing, content to face the armies of the sick inside of me. And her too.

So I have a question for you guys, its concerning the narrative of the story I'm writing. I have two options I'm mulling over, and would like some outside input.

The story is based around 2 priests going on a journey to find and retrieve a newly discovered (through a vision) artifact important to their sect. The theme of the novel is the disillusionment of the MC about the glamour of adventure. Subplots focus on him trying to cope with this shattering of his ideals, with him coming to realization that he still truly enjoys it, and then his struggle between his desire for ultimate freedom conflicting with his strong sense of duty. I have 2 options for the backgrounds of the priests, and here's where I'd like some input:

Option A- Both serve the God of War and are competent warriors. The older priest will carry a lot of experience, as well as a wound that makes it hard for him to talk. The MC will be a younger acolyte, and entirely inexperienced in the ways of the road and the reality of violence. This sets up the older priest to be a father like figure who can help the MC deal with the issues he's facing. There would be a fair amount of fighting as the pair clash with small bands of tribal warriors and ne'er-do-wells on the road, as well as one particular nasty fight with a group of city watchmen.

Option B- The pair are servants of the God of Nature (oversimplification but it serves) and are both skilled in bushcraft, but only as competent as most men are in the ways of fighting. They would be the same age in this option and would go through the harsh reality together, developing a brother like bond and helping each other find ways to cope. There would be very few scenes of violence, and this story would focus mainly on stealth and subterfuge.

I dont know which one would be more interesting to read, and need to figure it out before I can begin writing in earnest. Any input would be appreciated.

I'd take option B but with more violence.

Both sound good but I prefer brother-relationships over father-relationships.

Sounds to me like the quality of your story will depend heavily on your ability to maintain the feeling of adventure, too, so my unsolicited advice to you is to work hard at capturing that essence.

Tell me Socrates, what is writing?

Why not have one priest be of war, and the other of nature?. Then there is another layer of conflict, more perspectives and just more to work with as a writer.

I'd definitely prefer to read the option B. More violence like this user said. Be in by fighting or by coming across violent scenes, would make it much more interesting to read about, and the two would presumably create a much stronger bond rather than just walking around the forest singing camping songs.

I was considering a hybrid option just now, one being a war priest sent to protect the other. They could be peers as well, since I am inclined to agree with your preference for bro stories. And your advice is appreciated. It is part adventure part detective story, so I am taking some serious steps to maintain the air of mystery and adventure. The stone was only seen in an isolated vision, they dont actually know where it is aside from "In an ancient ruin." They have a few clues but have to set out more or less blind. I think the sheer scope of their task will help keep that spirit alive throughout.
That's what I'm starting to lean towards honestly. It would give me much more room to breathe, so to speak. It would also allow me some pretense for exposition on the different sects.
Sounds pretty clear to me then. How do you think a " sort of stodgy soldier paired with a mountain hippy" dynamic would work? I think there's some promise there personally.

>sort of stodgy soldier paired with a mountain hippy
Aye, but I was under the impression that the two are priests of the same sect. How is one a soldier and another a mountain hippy?
Just brainstorming here, they are both young, no? How about the head priest dude sent them on a journey to retrieve the whatever-needs-retrieving item sort of as a test? Initiation quest or whatever?

In any case, you would have to have a good reason for one being a soldier and the other a hippy seeing as they are both part of the same sect.

it's probably antithetical to the whole purpose of a word dump, but would you mind sharing a random paragraph? your concept is really fascinating to me

I'm pretty much sold on , which would make them part of different orders. I was just asking for an overall opinion on that idea, sorry for the confusing response.

As far as the test idea, that's what I'm leaning towards for the acolyte of Nature. The war priest will be a full blown priest sent to protect the acolyte. This stone is a huge deal, and its retrieval is paramount (according to the high priest of Nature, that is), so theres a lot of importance attached to this quest. As far as ranking goes for these sects, its laid out like this
>Proclament (recruit)
>Initiate (monk)
>Acolyte (lay-priest)
>Priest (head of smaller temples)
>Master (leading members, heads of major temples)
>High Priest
So the leap from acolyte to priest is a pretty big step. It's different for the God of War sect only, theres different requirements and ranks since they A)only have one temple and B)they function as a military force for the kingdom. Apologies for the exposition dump, hope I havent made it too confusing.

I really do appreciate all the input though boys, y'all have really got the ol almonds activated, unironically.

You could have one of them have secret instructions and plan to betray the other and take the stone for their own sect. But maybe as they get to know their companion and survive dangers with them they change their mind and decide to help them instead, or something.

That in particular would be out of character for either of them, I think, but you have given me a good idea. What if, rather than a secret agenda, both are told at the outset that "Swift retrieval of the stone is paramount. If one of you becomes too injured or ill to continue, the other must not hesitate to press on in pursuit of your mission." And then let's say the warrior gets wounded, it becomes infected, and he gets sicker and sicker until finally he just collapses. When he wakes up he finds that the acolyte has been caring for him for the last week or so, putting the warriors well being before the retrieval of the artifact. Then they get to have a bro moment, it changes the way the warrior sees the acolyte, etc. etc.

You could also make them gay, or make one of them a woman to have some sort of romantic undertones.

Currently writing a fairytale-esque story based on Scandinavian folktales, and myths. It's (roughly) in iambic heptameter, but with some stuff to break up the flow. It's also got some surreal Alice in Wonderland stuff thrown in, which actually goes well with the blend of reality and strange that is folktales.

Right now I'm just focusing on putting pen to paper, I'll need to go back and do a second draft, to work out some kinks. Then get some people to read it, get some critique, and then do another draft, and so on.

Attached: excerpt.png (1044x705, 127K)

I mean, if I wanted it to sell that would be the way to do it lmao. I dont know if I want to ape the Song of Achilles though (surprisingly good btw, I thoroughly enjoyed it).
It's pretty rough but I like the idea of it a lot, and your descriptions are very evocative. I like the way you shifted from curt straightforward sentences to very flowery, flowing descriptions when he interacts with the fairies. The flow changes nicely, and I sort of lost myself along with the character which is a neat trick. If this was on the back cover of a book I would buy it (albeit more heavily edited, of course, but I'm not going to begrudge you on your rough draft mistakes.)

I'm glad you liked it. Of course, like you mentioned, it's a first draft, and there's things I wish to change about it, but if I start doing that I'm going to be re-editing lines over and over again (even more than I already do).

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Yeah you've got to find a good balance or you'll mess up what you've already written. I did that a few weeks ago and totally fucking ruined the opening to a story. Still a little salty about it, but the lesson has been learned. Your excerpt is very comfy, best of luck writing your story.

I'm writing a fanfiction of Tokyo Ghoul that features a cyborg. I haven't had much feedback.

Post some of it, I'll give you feedback. That sounds pretty neat.

Yeah sure, this is actually the first time I've really gone back and looked at some of the shit I've written, I usually just let it out and continue on, which in itself adds to the adventure because when you finally do go back and read it, you forget a lot of the details and it's as if someone else did it. Anyway here's a little passage:
I am going to henceforth condone the decoherence, the communication breakdown, the dissolution of all that makes sense in some meaningful way, the assembly of all of those errant threads of this or that ripped unnaturally from their carelessly strewn pile and held in clenched sweaty fist in cogent artifice as symbol of some sort of greater meaning behind it all. That is a bundle force unnaturally to be a bundle and is of only slightly greater use than the chaos of being, its utility residing solely in the ‘good enough’ that marrs the interior walls of this dizzyingly intricate and convoluted reality. ‘Good enough’ because it need not reconcile the impossibly difficult, it need only sound good and be true with a lowercase t. It need only be true in the general sense, you see that truth and it applies just to the extent that it passes a fleeting inspection on the part of the truth be told-er. It provides a hastily constructed framework within which there does reside a very blurry lens through which there lay a two dimensional earth which while ostensibly a flattened out town of facades and fake doors, need not discourage the beholder in the thick of it so long as they continue on down the center path and do their very best not to look too close.

What in gods name is this even about? It's pretty fucking wild man.

/write/, it just occurred to me how slim my chances are. over 99% of people who write a book never get published by a traditional publisher, and of those who do, most will never sell more than 3000 copies.

The sheer weight of improbability is crushing the air from my lungs. I don't know how I'm supposed to react to this except by contemplating suicide. I can't handle this level of hopelessness

Do something else? What, did you decide to be a writer because you wanted to be famous?

iktf. but also most of them just suck. for a decent writer it's like 1/4 per book, so just write and shill 8 of them and you'll get in, i figure.

>did you decide to be a writer because you wanted to be famous?

If I can't win respect then I'm better off a carcass rotting in the ground

Who's respect? There are many easier ways to earn respect than selling books. Do you even enjoy writing?

I like creating stories, and I like when they turn out well. What I don't like is sucking at things, and I do that frequently

Well that's understandable then. Dont fall prey to that existential bullshit, just keep striving and working. I hate that tiny piece of my brain that tries to take over and tell me I cant do anything, he's a cocksucker. Yours sounds like an even bigger cocksucker, maybe even a motherfucker, so spite that incestual fellatious sack of shit and git gud. Also is right, most people who submit stuff for publication are absolutely terrible, and you seem to be able to write in complete sentences so I'd say you're ahead of the game.

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I started this strictly horror story in the middle of 2018 about a woman picking up another woman walking in a storm. The hitchhiker is a demon wearing human flesh that escaped from it's confines hours ago. I got a really fucking good start on it but the problem is trying to end it. Whenever I write a story I try to think of all the realistic outcomes. I guess the problem with this is that it has so many and I can't choose which one suites the characters.

>What are you writing, Yea Forums?
Active projects
>A series of myths created by "intelligent" cats on a dark net *chan.
>LotR parody wherein Sruman invents the smartphone

Planing
>My own fantasy setting to use as a platform for storys
>A vaporwave novel about a young man working in a dead mail

I also have a temptation to write Touhou fanfics/doujin as I find it easy to come up wrth funny scenarios for Zun's characters.

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>LotR parody wherein Sruman invents the smartphone
Desire to know more intensifies

all these words, fuck em

Working on my first attempt at a novel, but given the subject matter, it's effectively fan fiction unless I'm able to secure a certain company's blessing and publish it. Don't really have much hope of that happening though, it's more of a fun project for myself and my friends if they want to read it later on.

oh god I fucked up /write/. I managed to keep writing every day for 10 days straight, but today I looked up how slim my odds are of publication and I lost the strength to keep writing. It's nearly 1:15 AM. I don't have time to write my novel now and to make matters worse leddit is down so I can't do an /r/writingprompt

I fucked up

I had a surprisingly popular blog on Tumblr (I know, I'm sorry, it disgusts me as well) that I discontinued after half the site left over the adult content ban. That was a few months ago and I've barely written anything since. I'm starting to get that feeling of words trying to claw their way out of me and I need to find a way to let them go.
With that in mind, I'd like to try out writing some fiction again. I haven't done that since my first couple of years of college, many years ago, but I've basically forgotten everything I learned about creative writing and I'll be starting from scratch.
I'm thinking of trying to write something intentionally awful and trashy and self-indulgent just to get started, so I can practice without doing serious damage to my self-esteem as a writer once I start producing terrible first drafts. Is this a fun way to get started or will I just develop bad habits?
Does anyone have any suggestions for producing a truly stunningly bad piece of short fiction? I want to set the bar for my future endeavors as low as possible.

Write porn. Preferably fanfic porn. Even more preferably furry fanfic porn. Go for weird fetishes. Enjoy gagging at it for the next few years.

at least three posts in this thread say something like
>if you miss a day, don't beat yourself up, just keep going the day after
and that's a good suggestion for everything.

Also, publication should not be your primary concern. At the very worst, you could always publish on Amazon, which is just gonna grow as a platform over the years. For what you know, you could be a very successful writer on the most unthinkable way. But you have to be a writer first, when the occasion presents itself you have to be ready.
Think about it that way.

Fight me

I was thinking.of writing something about tennis. That greyness of a challenger ATP tennis match..the grind and impossibility of it all. I think it exposes the human condition in a very raw way.

Didn't you hang yourself David?

working on a big jumble book idea mostly of non-sense in a sing song fashion of utmost musiclarity wherein nothing makes sense but it all has some logic...
I want to capture that feeling of watching rugrats as a kid with the weird colors and sounds.
here's an example...

In on the there of every non-ever lived the circle square and his or her lover. Right behind the naught of Not, a to be not to be moat roamed in the air of one who was clever. The mighty big boy threw and clashed clumps of sand creating and shifting his imagination. Sparkle dust stars and the big bang, they continued one by one into queue and fold into twos by twos.
Jimmy James Jr. of Jimmy James Sr. was prodigal, he saw everything sideways and inside out, his language of mouth was simple numbers where he would spout clouds of code in beeps of binary.

I cleaned it up a bit and gave it a better structure.
Jimmy James Jr. of Jimmy James Sr. was prodigal, he saw everything inside out, his mind was constantly in The There, and his language of mouth was spoken by his fancy of the word's color. Somesay as as one such as I do say, that J.J. Jr. was a boy with unparalable ramboxious mind.

The mighty big boy J.J Jr. threw and clashed clumps of sand together and out to never, creating and shifting his imaginational outsidual inner land. Sparkle dust stars and the big bang,
In on The There of every non-ever lived the circle square and his or her lover. Right behind the naught of Not, a to be not to be moat roamed in the air of one who was clever. New ideas continued one by one into the thought queue where they folded into twos by twos then there they became divided between neveries and everies, every nevery was spaced along with every every, in a place we call The There.

Oh man, I wish I couldn’t relate to this
It’s even worse when you realize it’s shit after sending it to the publisher

>start writing short stories for contests and magazines
>deal primarily in despair
>contests all say they get too many "sad" submissions and want uplifting or funny stuff
>even when i try to write something uplifting it turns out depressing

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I am writing a novel about a dreamlike vacation tour of Europe where the 21 year old protagonist falls for a 15 year old girl.
At the end she is raped by a band of Muslim refugees and the protagonist is arrested for it.

Also a vignette about a fat hairy New York City Lebanese stock brocker giving a monologue in a hookah bar about how his family escaped the lebanese civil war only to be killed in 9/11

>Deaf school in Russia
>The deaf run a criminal operation, like a deaf Mafia
>The deaf protag is assigned a hot deaf girl to pimp out and he ends up falling in love with her
>Writing the whole book in braille

The Dragunov is not concealable.
Better if she steals a Vintorez from a wounded Russian Spetsznatz soldier, and leaves him to die.
First chapter of the last part of my 4 volume fantasy about an unnamed elf young girl in s XVII Europe.
Thoughts about this bundle? -->
humblebundle.com/books/write-like-a-writer-books

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I'm gonna have to do some literary analysis of my own here because I fr don't even remember what headspace I was in when I wrote the passage but I think the whole thing with randomly strewn threads forced into a bundle was supposed to be about humans creating narratives. Like, if you read a book covering a historical event or something, the events themselves don't fit snugly into some framework, there's a lot of random and disjointed moving parts, letters, historical accounts, biases to be accounted for, etc. that need to then be sifted through and organized into some meaningful tapestry because otherwise the sheer complexity of the thing would overwhelm the beholder and sink into total incoherence.
I think I was applying this concept to humanity at large, having a propensity for simplifying waking life in the form of things as small as adages, mantras and general truths to something as massive and monolithic as religions, philosophies, natural laws, etc. that provide a sense of order, that 'make sense,' on the condition they not be looked at too closely for fear the incoherent oblivion behind them all may become visible.
This gets touch upon just in the last couple sentences but I think I wrote another block of text that was essentially an argument with myself about whether or not it would be better to accept that paper house existence. I have a lot of difficulty articulating these ideas so it often devolves into that kind of abstract symbolism/word vomit in attempt to just convey ideas through what the words themselves evoke in the reader rather than literal interpretation. Either way, I don't think I would get the same effect if I thought about what I was saying, that's why I like the word vomit method, I think it's really the purest form of writing about the self because it sort of outruns the second-guessing that comes with calculated writing.

There once was a nigger, he was the most niggerly of the niggers in niggerville. No other nigger came close to is niggerious feats; spear chucking, finger licking, water melon spitting, kool aid guzzling, sneaking about and the other sorts of nigger traditions. They declared them him KANNNNGGGG and so he had the cream of the crop when it came to which sheboon he would declare his QWAAAAIIINNN. Together they ruled over niggerville from their crib and produced many strong and power niglettes who would one day take the benz drivers seat and be crowned a with an old KFC bucket. Find out what happens in book 2.
>inb4 ban

ebin :DDDD xD

Do you guys have any suggestion of books about storytelling? Books that deal with techniques, concepts, common mistakes and such

heros journey and aristotles poetics

I wonder if these 15 bucks are a good investment because I sure as hell don't know how to get humble bundles on torrents or something.

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Thank you for the suggestions.
Could you be more specific concerning "heros journey"?

These are the books I could find (and that seemed relevant) on lib gen

Kristine Carlson
From Heartbreak To Wholeness: The Hero’s Journey To Joy

William Bernhardt
Perfecting Plot: Charting the Hero's Journey

Harold Bloom (Editor), Blake Hobby (Volume Editor)
The Hero's Journey (Bloom's Literary Themes)

John L. Brown, Cerylle A. Moffett
The Hero's Journey: How Educators Can Transform Schools and Improve Learning

Thomas Van Nortwick
Somewhere I Have Never Travelled:The Hero’s Journey

Evie Lotze
Work Culture Transformation: Straw To Gold - The Modern Hero's Journey

Seems like a waste of time and money user.
Title looks kinda similar to those youtube videos, "learn to code like a pro in 30 minutes" or "python in 6 hours".

On Writing by Stephen King. Orson Scott Card also has some good books on writing.

Sup guys,newfriend here will these books help me to start the /lit-writ/ lifestyle?

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So, I read this comment right before I got called in to work on my day off, they had me driving around making deliveries and so I had a few hours to sit in traffic by myself thinking about scenarios for weird fetish porn that I could try writing
Then when I got back to the office I asked the girls there if there was anything else I could do for them before I left for the day and one of them was like 'why don't you come over here and rub my feet haha' and I'd usually laugh that off but I totally froze up and just walked out of the room while they laughed at how I was turning red because I had just been thinking about fucking weird fetish porn scenarios for hours
All the girls I work with probably think I'm a foot fetishist now, th-thanks Yea Forums

I was interested in your stories before but
>Next to me was a 50 year old movie director from South Africa. Got to talking one night when I came home from work. Told me his life story, and talked about reverse racism back home.
Now I'm really interested.

t. South African

pastebin.com/HUjJU4dN

please critique

Not much of a story but alright, I'll greentext it anyways. I'll try and paint the whole scene because why not
>working as a bartender, so working late shifts often
>come to the squat at around 3am
>the front door didn't have a handle as to deter police and other trespassers
>instead, you honk a little bicycle horn placed next to the door
>be honking for 20 minutes, eventually the dogs barking wake up one of the residents and she comes down to let me in
>the place had no electricity besides a generator which would only run when we had bands playing
>occasionally this autistic greek guy would connect his electric van to the building somehow giving it power
Anyways I digress
>take off my shoes and lay on the floor on a mattress dead tired at this point
>can't sleep for some reason, fiddle on my phone a bit trying not to wake up the guy next to me
>He asks "Hey man, you aren't sleeping?"
>I say no, and we get to talking
>He is a 50-something south african movie director, here for a week before heading to another city to meet a girl
>Tells me how he studied in the US before moving back home to South Africa
>Tried for years to get funding for his projects
>Says he couldn't as he is white
>Proceeds to tell me all about life down there, how white people live in secluded and protected areas, talks about Sixto Rodriguez and how the government censored his records
>Says he moved to EU to get funding for a movie he is making
>Got the funding, and now he is on his way to shoot said movie
>Tells me about his travels, he visited basically every country there is to visit
(have the guy on facebook now, judging by his pictures, everything he told me is true)
>Proceeds to talk about his "girlfriend" he is meeting
>The girl is 17
>He is in his fifties
>alright.jpg
>I change the subject back to South Africa as i really don't want to ruin my impression of this guy by imagining him as a pedophile
>He goes on a rant how he really hates niggers
>In Africa
>Explains calmly how they aren't good people and how most of them would rob or use you first chance they get
>We talk about life in general for the next half an hour or so, how to look at your goals, aging and shit you feel are too late to do.
>was interesting since I am 26 and he is 50+, and we are both sleeping on a mattress on the floor in an abandoned school
Nice guy in general. Met him once more after that. Will actually send him a message, I'm interested in how he is doing.

I have another one about a mad scientist with a headlamp who slept in a tent in one of the rooms self named Peter Poljak. He was building an immigrant-themed RPG boardgame and discussing the best ways to build a bomb

how did you manage to NOT find the only heros journey that matters (1949)
amazon.ca/Hero-Thousand-Faces-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2FXHF2JVZ68RZ&keywords=joseph campbell&qid=1557434397&s=books&sprefix=joseph,stripbooks,190&sr=1-1

You use a lot of filtering/redundant words. I'll edit the first paragraph for reference.

>Brunch at my sisters was fairly pleasent, the dove was cooked well enough and the mash was peppered just right. But I felt a loss, and amiss, I don't think I smiled once. Perhaps it was never supposed to be that sort of day, and I was content with that. Now it was time to work and put in my ordered dues. I did want to see my neice but she was off at her friends for the afternoon. After I spotted my shoes I noticed a familiar floural aroma, a lavander melon scent wafed in the entry hall. It must be her. I spoke out loud "Melaney?" but only silence answered and I thought I must of been mistaken, and simply chambered her scent out of wishful thinkig. I climbed to my feet with my shoes to head out in the summer heat. . I headed to the door, and there she was, Melaney.

>Brunch at my sisters was pleasant, the dove was well cooked and the mash was peppered just right. I was at a loss, I didn't smile once. It was never supposed to be that sort of day, and I was content with that. It was time to work and put in my ordered dues. I wanted to see my niece but she was at her friends for the afternoon. I noticed a familiar floral aroma, a lavender melon scent wafted in the entry hall. It must be her. I spoke out loud "Melaney?" silence answered me. I must have conjured her scent from wishful thinking. I headed out into the summer heat, and there she was, Melaney.

It's not perfect but you should get the general idea.

Can't believe I've never heard of Sixto, but the cover of Sugar Man by Just Jinger was a staple of my youth.The stuff he says about Africans and "reverse apartheid" is mostly true though. I always love to read about South African abroad and how foreigners experience them.

>I have another one about a mad scientist with a headlamp who slept in a tent in one of the rooms self named Peter Poljak. He was building an immigrant-themed RPG boardgame and discussing the best ways to build a bomb

I think you have plenty of good source material if these two stories/characters are any indication of what is to be expected.

Thank you very much user, I normally write poetry, so this is really different for me.

How was my prose and pacing? This was just a draft that took me about a half hour to write all together but I will probably do a short story of this just to get a more efficient writing experience.

Do I paint a good picture? Is my theme overall the same so as it doesn't confuse context?

>I always love to read about South African abroad and how foreigners experience them.
Honestly, I've only met two, the second being a 40-ish woman who worked with me in a London pub for a while. My favorite colleague, such a genuinely great person.
So, so far every South African I've met has been wonderful, and I have a very positive view of you guys.
>I think you have plenty of good source material if these two stories/characters are any indication of what is to be expected.
Thanks user, means a lot. Now if I only knew how and where to start and finish the story. Need to figure that part out first

>How was my prose and pacing? This was just a draft that took me about a half hour to write all together but I will probably do a short story of this just to get a more efficient writing experience.

>Do I paint a good picture? Is my theme overall the same so as it doesn't confuse context?

For a quick draft, it was good. Your prose has promise but it needs more polish. You should read more fiction and maybe something like The Language of Fiction: A Writers Stylebook, by Brian Shawver for more direct advice.

Thank you, Your criticism is good and you know how to wield it like a well poised knife.

I will look for that book.

I'll give a uniquely South African story for you as thanks for sharing yours:
>at my weed dealer's place, let's call him uncle
>actually very chill 76 year old brit wiccan that has been smoking weed since he was 12
>always go sit at his braai area in his backyard that is more like a coven
>people come and go, always a fresh face, everyone always very chilled
>while there the Chief, a hand crafted pipe from some kind of mineral rock gets passed around as is customary
>can see a glint in uncle's eye, it's story time
>uncle starts telling of the time decades ago he worked overseeing the construction/laying of copper cabling out in the bush
>theft is a common problem, then and now
>one day some of the workers bring in a bushman they caught that was trying to steal copper cables
>only speaks click click, no English or Afrikaans
>they search the bushman, around his neck was a little horn container with some kind of marijuana in it
>uncle decides to take it for himself and give the bushman some scrap copper wire
>says that weed is one of the most intense highs he's ever had, some kind of rooibaard(red beard) strain
>couple of days later the bushman comes back with more weed to trade for copper wire
>cultural exchange at its best

Wish I had more stories but the others are a bit harder to greentext.

>Thanks user, means a lot. Now if I only knew how and where to start and finish the story. Need to figure that part out first
Pleasure. Yeah writing is hard. Maybe look at reading some other biographies to see how others handle it?

I'm writing the first draft of a book
it's a simple set-up: it follows 'cave-men' as they develop civilization, writing, religion, etc.
it's humorous, and it's not historically accurate, and I'm enjoying writing it but as I go back it just sounds a little cheesy in terms of topic? like, there are characters and character development to keep the story going, but the overall concept is in no way subtle or left to interpretation; it's obvious where the story will go, even if it's fun.
does it sound gay anons? like should I try to be a little more serious?

It sounds good to me. Stories with a non-serious premise can definitely work as long you execute it well.

Thanks for the story user, the image this created in my head is hilarious. The uncle guy sounds like a nice guy to hang out with too.

>Pleasure. Yeah writing is hard. Maybe look at reading some other biographies to see how others handle it?
I've read a lot and tried to think about how to incorporate their approach into mine, but what i guess i really have to do is set a timeline. No point in trying to write down the past 10 years of my life as a story.
Honestly, I don't even care about making money from it. I just have this strong desire to tell a story and publish it. Hold a physical manifestation of the demented shit I went through in my hands.

How do I build up my confidence as a writer? I'm too worried about how bad I'm writing to have fun, and because I'm not having fun with it, it turns out miserably

The first draft is going to be bad no matter what. Write stuff down, then come back and edit it to be less shit.
You build confidence by writing.

I've written a lot of poetry in the last decade. Published in magazines here and there.

I want to write a Chricton-esque sci-fi action novel. I've had this want for years, I cant explain it.

>How do I build up my confidence as a writer?
Read garbage and realise you're nowhere near the worst writer in the world.

Stop caring if your first draft is good or not, just vomit it out.

Focus on finishing, not quality.

Find constructive, but positive, feedback.

>Saruman becomes the Steve Jobs of Middle Earth.
>Gandalf fails to stop his botnet because he cant live without his waifu.

I have a first draft with a lot I need to fill out.

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>I've read a lot and tried to think about how to incorporate their approach into mine, but what i guess i really have to do is set a timeline. No point in trying to write down the past 10 years of my life as a story.
I'm new to writing myself. I have some story ideas already, the one could possibly be as long as series of 9 books if I want to go all out, another one should be just one book but has potential for a sequel. I keep running in to this "starting" problem despite having the general structure laid out. They started out as much smaller in scope but I kept finding myself expanding on them to the point where they are too ambitious for a novice such as myself.

I recently took a question posed in another thread about how to kill off a main character in a rather horrible way as a prompt for a short story, since if the character dies and the theme is about that, then I won't get stuck in that expanding problem and I can focus on something small and actually finish it instead of just talking about writing.

So in your case perhaps maybe just take one of your many encounters and focus writing about that one as a stand-alone short story or chapter instead of trying to weave them all in to one large flowing narrative at the same time. Alternatively, you could try some fictional short stories, perhaps even fictional biographies.

>Honestly, I don't even care about making money from it. I just have this strong desire to tell a story and publish it.
Same, I just want to write what I want to write and put it out there. I thought about the prospect of monetizing my writing, but found that I kept thinking about how to placate or appease the reader(and publisher) instead of writing what I wanted to write, so I have more or less resolved to stay away from the whole writing for money thing.

Live to write, not write to live.

>Hold a physical manifestation of the demented shit I went through in my hands.
I can relate to that feel.

Holy fucking shit lmao. My bad

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The elements of style is literally my pocket bible, so you did good there. I dunno about the other ones.

Write about someone that develops a fetish for getting publicly embarrassed for having fetishes.

Is this a photoshop or did Gandalf actually use a mac in the lotr movies?

based high iq bro

Interesting, could you give me another recommendations?

I'm sure they probably didn't think anything of it but I immediately thought 'oh yeah, that'd be a pretty good fetish porn scenario to write about, thanks...fuck, wait, I can't say that' and I can't even imagine what my face must have looked like
Ah, I've actually done enough weird shit that I was like 'sure, I'll just write some fetish porn, that'll be a piece of cake for me' but I actually hate springing it on unsuspecting people in public, it's just plain rude, you know?
I could probably take all the times I ALMOST got caught and turn that into a funny sex comedy though
>tfw someone asks where you and your gf met and you say 'bible study' and she says 'cooking class'

Trying to get better and write more chapters for my first novel. How is my fantasy prose looking like?

The fusty, pinewood barn was illuminated with candles, and in its center, a cabal of vagabonds gathered around a shimmering silver hexagram. Men and women, young and old, each one dangerous in their own mangy way. Their inconsistent gear was unified only by a blood-red symbol of a hand: the only thing decorating their moth-eaten sleeves and rusted pauldrons, like a grim mockery of a coat of arms.

Something extraordinary was going take place that night, in that old, run-down outbuilding.

The group was trading rumors, some about the woebegone state of the realm, others about baser things; one could hardly expect polite conversation from a gaggle of rogues, after all. Many fanciful ideas about what would occur once their infamous leader arrived were making the rounds, and among the gossipers, a short, elfin girl with large, catty eyes, and flowing locks of platinum hair was getting particularly creative.

“I’ve heard it requires a human sacrifice! I’m pretty sure of it, like this sure!” she said loudly, leaning her back on the ladders to the hayloft and spreading her arms out wide to illustrate just how sure she was to a nervous-looking taller boy. The boy averted his eyes and tightened his spindly fingers around a crooked birch staff—one he’d carved himself.

An unkempt head of chestnut brown hair, thin wrists and a neck like a polearm: these in combination with his wilted posture gave him the unfortunate appearance of a dead tree. Although the boy’s proper name was Gillebrein Dal-Parsey, everyone in the village simply called him ‘Gill,’ and he was thankful for their lack of courtesy. Most with a family name bearing the ‘Dal’ title of nobility would flaunt it religiously, but to Gill it was nothing but a cause for shame, and an unpleasant reminder of his years spent growing up in the capital.

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I want to read more, personally.

this user gets it

FictionPress is FictionPress.

Wattpad is FictionPress only with less people.

Royal Road is full of unironic isekaifags.

WordPress isn't a community so some magic algorithm won't help.

Amazon has a paywall so less people are willing to read your shit.

I don't want to try to get professionally published.

Help.

Thanks I'll check those out too.
These sound great too
I'm sorry user I typed hero's journey on lib gen and I couldn't find this one.

You rely too much on overlong complex sentences and are generally too wordy and over-descriptive. It hurts the flow of your writing. Sometimes less is more.

>So in your case perhaps maybe just take one of your many encounters and focus writing about that one as a stand-alone short story or chapter instead of trying to weave them all in to one large flowing narrative at the same time.
Oh hey, that's a great idea!
Like each section of a book being a certain time period, and a compilation of short stories/encounters from that time period?
user i love you, you just solved my issue of how to start.
Think someone would actually read a compilation like that? Well I guess, Kerouac's On the Road is basically that but reads like a novel.