How can I live the literary lifestyle...

What’s the difference between yourself and a loser?

I have no interest in defending myself to you after you came to Veeky Forums to ask for advice. I could be just like you, or maybe I'm not.

The literary lifestyle is garbage. The best books are written by people who don't even really enjoy reading or writing but do it out of personal necessity.

>That said, survival is extremely difficult. One could consider adopting what could be called Pessoa’s strategy: find a little job, publish nothing, and await death peacefully. In practice, one would be going forward to meet significant difficulties: the feeling that one is wasting one’s time, that one is not in one’s place, that one is not being esteemed at one’s true value. . . All this would rapidly become unbearable. Drinking would be difficult to avoid. In the end, bitterness and acrimony would lie in wait at the end of the road, soon to be followed by apathy and irreversible creative sterility.
>This solution, then, has its disadvantages, but it is generally the only one. Do not forget psychiatrists, who have at their disposal the power to grant sick-leave. However, a prolonged stay at a psychiatric hospital is to be proscribed: too destructive. One should use this only as a last resort, as an alternative to destitution. The mechanisms of the welfare state (unemployment payments, etc.) should be taken full advantage of, as well as the financial support of friends who are better off. Do not cultivate excessive guilt with regard to this. The poet is a sacred parasite.
>The poet is a sacred parasite: like the scarabs of ancient Egypt, he can thrive upon the body of wealthy societies in a state of decay. Yet he also has his place at the heart of frugal and strong societies.
> You do not have to fight. Boxers fight, not poets. All the same, it is necessary to publish a little bit; this is a necessary condition for posthumous recognition to take place. If you do not publish a certain minimal amount (be it only a handful of texts in some second-rate review), you will go unnoticed by posterity—just as unnoticed as you were during your life. Even the most perfect genius must leave behind a trace; leave it to the literary archaeologists to exhume the rest.
>This can fail; it often fails. You should repeat to yourself at least once a day that the important thing is to do your best.
>Studying the biographies of your favorite poets may be useful to you; this may permit you to avoid certain errors. Never forget that as a general rule, there is no good solution to the problem of material survival, although there are many very bad ones.

>The problem of where you spend your life will generally not present itself; you will live where you can. Try simply to avoid overly noisy neighbors, who are capable quite by themselves of bringing on a definitive intellectual death.
>A little professional experience can provide some knowledge, usable eventually in a later work, about the functioning of society. But a period of destitution, where you would plunge into marginality, can provide other kinds of knowledge. The ideal is to alternate.
>Other realities of life—such as a harmonious sex life, marriage, and children—are both beneficial and fruitful. But these are almost impossible to attain: as far as art is concerned, they are virtually unknown territories.
>In a general way, you will be tossed back and forth between bitterness and anguish. In both cases, alcohol will help. The important thing is to obtain the few moments of remission that will permit the realization of your œuvre. They will be brief; make an effort to seize them.

>Have no fear of happiness; it does not exist.

houellebecq.info/popdivers.php?id=13

Join a fishing boat or become a miner or welder. In your free time, learn Greek and Latin and start studying the ancients as well as reading 19th, 20th, and 21st century authors as well. Have a perfect grasp of English grammar as well. Then start working on writing short stories. Eventually after you’ve established yourself as one of the best short fiction blue collar authors in America, work on one final novel, obsessively until you die in some sort of work place accident, or from a heart attack, leaving your publishers with your manuscript which they will publish posthumously to great acclaim.

The literary lifestyle is also lived out of necessity.

Necessity to thrive as a gay, maybe.

Gays cannot thrive, which is why they make for good artists.

I’m not OP.

This helps. Thanks

>The poet is a sacred parasite
I've got to write some poetry for easy holiness points

>Studying the biographies of your favorite poets may be useful to you; this may permit you to avoid certain errors.

Whose biography would be good for this?

I really don't get this question.
I mean read a bunch of bios on a bunch of great writers and you will see that they all come from varied backgrounds.

the Veeky Forums lifestyle I would say is gaining a mindful awareness of your surroundings and your expierence.
You should be able to find the beauty or the magic in every moment in every place.

Other than that you just need to read.
Expand your vocabulary and reading comprehension.

Engage in life user. Never pass up an opportunity. or if you do be sure to write about it in your journal.
If you want to live a medieval literary lifestyle. Lock yourself in a dark room wearing nothing but a wool robe, and do nothing but read the bible, and transcribe it.
Also drink nothing but water, and eat nothing but malt-o-meal.

rimbaud