How do I escape the feeling that I've already failed in my attempt to be a writer whose talent is evident from his...

Thanks for the quote. However I've read Tolstoy's "Boyhood / Childhood / Youth" series which he wrote at a young age and can't help but feel he was just writing for the sake of writing by the end. Also what about Dosty and his writing to make rent and pay off his debtors?

Hubris in what sense? And yes from now on I intend to use a pen-name. I really am not suited to the age of the internet. I feel like I've been exposed as a fraud and that my entire existence and the name from which I cannot escape has been tarnished by my bad decision.

To an extent I suppose but I do feel this is a valid feeling. For example, I won a prize which I simply should not have won considering how many mistakes were present in my work. The runners-up had very few mistakes in comparison, and their own work was subtle and careful in a way that mine was not. It really reads like a cry for help from an autistic teenager or something. I saw the deadline and had already written one story (which didn't win) and thought for the sake of testing out two distinct styles I'd write another in two days and submit it to see if I was right in thinking it had a better chance of winning, which of course it did.

Well, when Tolstoy says something about being wrong there is always a high chance that he went through this "wrong" thing himself first.
As for Dosto he once said that K. Bros is a well-written book comparing to all his previous works simply because this time he didn't have to haste and make money — he had all the time he needed to set everything right in this book.

seems like you figured out the judges which must at least mean you were smart and can adapt

Don't escape the feeling, work through it.

Why do you want to be a "writer whose talent is evident from his early work"? Isn't it enough to be good? What's so important about doing this without failing a single one time? And do you even hear yourself on how absurd that task is? No wonder you failed it.

Now, I understand that weird feeling of being praised for something you did which you don't like yourself. Which better evidence could there be that you are your worse judge? It also indicates that although you consider yourself a "people pleaser", you are not really listening to what others have to say. In the sense that you don't account for the fact that people can rejoice and learn even from your worst writing. Just like someone will always hate your work regardless of how well you think it's written, not because of any objective characteristic, but because there are multiple ways to perceive it. Instead, your own criticism towards yourself and your work seems to swallow all of that up, making you believe you are either a successful good writer or a poor writer altogether.

The good news is that there is no essential core to you, you are neither a good writer or a bad writer, because those depend on something you do and you can always be better or worse and always be better to some and not others. That is to say, you are not defined by any past experience, even though you go suicidal about "some shit thing that happened in the past". Or you think of giving up writing because your first story is not great. Think straight about that for a second.

Don't call them to remove the pics, no one will remember those pics, you should take their example. After a few years, when you are more emotionally mature than today and with the advantage of distance, you'll look at this experience and remember what you've gained from it, including the thought of what you don't want to write, which is a precious thing to discover in itself.

Your next project may also be dissapointing for that or other reasons. Don't idealize things so much. Work through them, it gets better precisely because of those injuctions between your work, your ideas, the public and your self perception. But only if you work though them.

That may be true, but again I feel this is the worst thing any "artist" can do, i.e. to write something for the sake of appealing to an audience he does not respect. Not that I wrote in a YA-style etc, only that I knew that the plot I quickly put together along with the style of writing, the comic nature of the story and the kind of "cute, heartwarming" narrative arc would make people who aren't perhaps acquainted with literary fiction and so on enjoy it. I feel that is a bad thing to do from my perspective, as I feel like the kind of hack comedian who acts dumb to make his audience feel smart, rather than being himself regardless of how long he has to suffer in obscurity for the sake of principles, his style, and so on. I feel like someone who sells out to star in an advertisement, thus making money, earning attention, winning the brief favour of a plebeian audience, but ultimately selling out and ruining his artistic credibility. That kind of thing for me is eternal and thus "pure" in a way which, once tainted, can never be fully redeemed.

In stand-up comedy, there's three stages of performance.
1. You make generic jokes that makes people laugh
2. Your jokes are about things that's happened in your life
3. Your jokes reflect your inner thoughts and values.
Just keep going if you won something you may have talent. Just put in the 10k hours, and hang around like-minded people, which is almost the most important thing.
And eat well/workout you darn shit!

You just won a short story competition and you're complaining. If you write for the success of being recognized/published, you've gotten off to a decent start, be happy about it, step onto the treadmill.
If you don't want that, just keep writing, and don't publish anything

Did you really set out only to be "a writer whose talent is evident from his early work"? That sounds vain

Also, read. When you become more aware of your cultural context you start to take an interest in new things, that may serve you as new inspirations.

And take a bath and a suit and start smiling when you win a freaking reward!

Because even in the early stories of writers I admire I can observe early evidence of their mature style. Even if that work was unpublished etc it's still present, and seems almost to cling to them in a way that does not allow them to write in a far different manner even if they wanted to make a cheap buck to win some lame award and have their head patted for whatever reason.

>The good news is that there is no essential core to you,

This is something I struggle with a great deal. Accepting that IQ is unevenly distributed across races and so forth, it would make sense to believe that some people have the innate, inherent capacity to be more intelligent (self-aware, observant, sensitive, capable of logical thought etc), and thus better writers than others. Even in the lives of people like Kurt Cobain you can sense early on that there is something to them that their peers lack, and I am very tempted by the notion that a small minority of rare individuals are simply born with this unique, genius-like talent which may even be fated to be exposed according to some kind of noumenal law or something. It's like a true conspiracy against the human race, or at least those who are trying as hard as they can to mimic these rare individuals despite sensing deep down that they just aren't cut out to be Shmuck #14147 who only exists so that the rare individuals can be proven to be geniuses in comparison.

Hubris in the wikipedia sense, your post implied something along the lines of "I'm destined to great things, this recognition of my work has been poorly staged and this is the only reason why later generations won't remember me". Being humble might be beneficial for your work (and your shirts). Just throwing in some ideas btw, not trying to be mean

Wouldn't you complain if you woke up in John Green's body, with no potential to escape and return to your former self, and knowing also that are literally burdened with the identity of a guy who writes YA novels full of cringeworthy statements? What I'm getting at is that I have read books by Schopenahuer, Nietzsche etc who all say the same thing, namely that they do not write to please anybody, nor to win any awards, nor to be thought of as good men, nor for the attention or the approval of the masses. And I just feel like I did that. Rather than make sure I knew of the style I wanted to pursue, and the subjects I thought to be interesting and so on regardless of how they would be received, I simply *pandered* to the tastes and opinions of the lower end of the status quo, thus selling myself out, which no amount of money or back-slaps can ever begin to make up for in my eyes.

I didn't mean to imply that I thought I was destined for great things, only that I acknowledge that such a thing as a "great thing" exists and that I feel it is only right that I strive for that, rather than simply being content with shallow approval, cheap laughs and so on. It's not really about later generations either, I just feel that having sold myself short already I have revealed to myself (and others) that at the core of my being I am a pitiable individual due to my even trying to win the approval of people in a way that was not true to my self, like a hack comedian smashing watermelons onstage for laughs rather than risking disapproval or obscurity by speaking his mind.

Isn't applying for that competition exactly that? Risking failure amidst judgement?

Yes, but I feel that I wrote a story I thought would win, rather than something that would represent my thoughts, stylistic tendencies, and so forth. In that way it feels like a hollow, fraudulent victory. The shorty ugly man puts on platform shoes for his date, who falls for him immediately. But it's the short ugly man's brother, who is also short an ugly, who ends up marrying a charming, shy, refined girl who finally acknowledges him and falls in love with him in a way that the insecure platform-shoe wearing man can never quite allow himself to be loved, because it would mean revealing he is actually not that tall.

All of that which you are complaining comes from the reasoning that there is something prior to work that determines how the work is going to turn out. You think it is possible to tell how you are going to write in 20 years based on what you are writing now. You think there is some kind of contract that binds you to repeat the biography of others. Because of that, in every failure of the past you see a bigger failure in the future and in that you prevent yourself from seeing that this failure is necessary for you to progress. Whether or not previous writers went through the same thing.

There is nothing to be done except to move on and continue to work. If you sit around, you'll just keep blaming the past. You must realize it has nothing to do with iq points, fate, law, conspiracy, talent, genius, because it is the order of things which you are messing up. There is no statistic that can show you what you are to do next and how that is going to be taken, specially because you can surprise yourself when you work and show to others, as proven by your own experience. It is a matter of pressing on and accepting these as legitimate experiences. Look less to the image you project, listen to yourself and to others.

In new experiences you'll always experience some loss, a loss of a knowledge or control that you thought you had before. This can be interesting and provoking, even if frightening.

just confess your sin to your nearest priest and move on

Thanks for the posts, I appreciate it.

This actually helps you in many ways. If your writing really does improve from your first published work, that looks really good in the eyes of an agent.

Write a better story and get it published and it'll wipe out any anxiety you have.

If you're worried about what other people think of you then that's a different story. Eat some salads, hit the weights, and buy some normal clothes.

so you think you're a hack and nothing more
well lemme read your work, see if it does reek of manure

It's one think to feel like a bad writer but it's autistic (in a technical sense of the word) to want to take the exposure down. Others have already judged it more positive than negative, thus it will help more than it will harm you.

>muh favorite shirt
Goddam neurological disorders must be a bitch. How did you determine that was your favorite shirt?

>and these have ended up being published on twitter, facebook and so forth and I look like a fucking fat, unfashionable, weird-looking depressed retard in pretty much every single one.
pls post

bump

No one will give a shit about your "tainted legacy" except you. Go back and look at the early works of lots of famous authors and even if it is good it would probably embarass them to see it brought up. The fear you feel is just that, fear. It doesn't correspond to real threat. You regard yourself with much worse intimacy than anyone else will. The biggest fear we have of criticism isn't what the critic has thought and wrote, but the neuroses it will spur in our own mind against ourselves.

Also go and read Kafka's diary he writes the same sort of gay shit but obviously he's over-reacting

this, the big writers had their own worries. "Surely I won't be the first... X" or whatever. But more than that, they liked writing. As long as you like it, you'll be ok....

Not true. If an author achieves any degree of fame or sustained attention their early work is always scrutinized and judged as a means of identifying whether or not they are innately talented.

Write a book about it. Charlie Kaufman built an entire career on his anxieties.

OP here and I'm still freaking out. I feel like just ending it and hoping I get reincarnated.

The thing is, until a couple of years ago I was a serious, non-fat aspiring writer who had a ton of passion, ambition and energy to channel into my writing. But since I started working full-time I've gradually become a depressed, fat, slow-thinking retard who produces sloppy shit like the story I submitted. Should I just end it? Am I just too weak and stupid to be able to handle both working full-time and anything resembling a literary career?

selling out is better than death, stop being a moralfag

But that's not what happened to you.

post the short story here, or use your obvious angst as a drive to write better, different stuff

I don't agree. I find the idea of clinging to life for no reason and by whatever means to be completely counter to my own principles.

I can't do that. I can't even read a single line of it now because it embarrasses me so much. I don't know what came over me, or rather I do (the desire to simply win) and I am disgusted that I ever put my name to that story. I feel like I've sold out by working a dumb full-time office job and that I sold out again by submitting a feel-good, poorly-written, pleb-tier story. And when I think about that I start to think about all the times in my life where I haven't been true to my principles or taken the easy route rather than the interesting route and I feel right now a this very moment that I should quit my job and go sleep in a tent for half a year just to purge my faggotry.

Don't be histrionic

I don't feel I am. Imagine finding out that your favourite author wrote a story at the age of 26 in which the writing style, sense of humour and narrative are cringey as fuck and only appeal to very old women or children. Even when I collected my award I sensed that the other writers there were looking at me in disgust, as if I'd won not on merit but because I'd LARPed as a retard to get attention. I experience waves of absolute red-faced humiliation like I am right now and I wish I could just restart my life or delete this from it, but it's there like a voice saying "remember dude, you're fucking retarded".

It'll be clearly visible from your subsequent work that whatever you wrote for that short story contest (if anyone pays any attention to it or you at all, which you seem to presume, arrogantly) isn't representative of you or your ideas. You have a range of ways to deal with it.

You're larping now and frankly it seems like you just want the attention. If you're really this much of a perfectionist then it might keep annoying your for the rest of your life. But this happened to the most accomplished authors, some of them edited, rewrote, or commented on earlier works for decades to come. Why should it be different for you? Are you particularly talented or chosen? If yes, how could this have happened?

You are being fucking retarded. This is a learning experience. Imagine your favorite author, his daily life. He must've spilled his spaghetti a few times, he must've had regrets. So many awkward and downright embarrassing moments are lost because that author decided to write good stories, which we remember him for. Kubrick was disgusted by his early films and had all copies of his film 'Fear and desire' destroyed. But you don't know Kubrick for that film, you know him for his good works. You must redeem yourself by writing good literature otherwise you'll still get hung up about.

I promise I'm not LARPing, and that I'm reading every reply closely.

>Are you particularly talented or chosen? If yes, how could this have happened?
That's the kind of thing that makes me want to approach the nearest wall and slam my head against it until I pass out.

But those authors still had composure and respect when it came to their writing. I just rushed a story and ended up with something shitty in print. Even though I've since edited the online version which most people will read the print version will make the average reader (including myself) read it and think "holy fuck an adult wrote this, what the fuck is he retarded or just dumb? Did they give him the award because they thought he was too pathetic not to win?"

That is a flattery. Nothing to be feared.

>Imagine finding out that your favourite author wrote a story at the age of 26 in which the writing style, sense of humour and narrative are cringey as fuck and only appeal to very old women or children.
I would literally not give a shit. It would be funny and humanising. No one is nearly as hostile to himself as the self-doubter.

I don't know what you want to hear. Just write better stories befitting an artist next time. You've not yet comprised your morals or ethics since you're showing regret. You'll always regret this, but that's a good thing. So keep writing, or don't. Frankly, I'd be more embarassed if I didn't write anything else and people only knew me for one shitty print and I didn't anything to redeem my name whilst still being perfectly capable of doing so.

I grappled with this... but in the opposite manner. Felt like I captured lightning in a bottle. Won a national contest judged by a Governor General's Award winning novelist. Felt an intense fear of failure after, impostor's syndrome, all that jazz. I didn't actually go to the little award ceremony, which I kind of regret... but tickets were like fucking $40 each.
I also got a few other pieces published under a pen name, since I was catering hard to a political ideology to appease judges. I just simply forget about them, knowing I was paid for it already.

thanks, joe rogan