I took a year off to write my novel and have spent the last six months trying to get an agent or a publisher to pick up...

You know George Saunders was 31 when his first novel, "Ed's Wedding", was rejected and he scrapped it and kept publishing a short story ever year until his first book came out at the age of 38. Houellebecq published his first poem aged around 29 and first book at about 35. John Edward Williams's first notable work came out at 40 etc.

Today there is an emphasis on youth like never before, with people achieving things younger and younger. But what you rarely hear about are those same people who end up being 30 with nothing ahead of them because their youth was their only selling point.

Pretty much.

I didn't quit my job outright, but I took several months off to focus on writing and then worked at a shitty part-time gig while I wrapped up the manuscript and did some editing.

Then I stopped working again for several months to focus on querying agents and submitting to magazines, etc.

It's worth mentioning that my wife makes decent money for someone her age and she's also in school, getting ready to switch her career to something even more lucrative. But she's not outright supporting me. In fact, she doesn't support me at all. We split everything down the middle. She's waiting for me to get my shit together so we can buy a decent house and move to a nicer city for the sake of our family's future. Meanwhile, I'm staying up until 6 AM working on a novel no one is ever going to care about.

>taking a year off and actually believing you will be successful in an industry where making a living is like winning the lottery and most in the field still have day jobs

that's the real retard part. nothing says you can't write a good novel and who knows, it may be successful. but dedicating your entire existence to this, banking your identity on it, and assuming that it is a viable path to money getting in this bourgeois world is a foolish endeavor and you shouldn't have sacrificed your sanity for a meme.

but nothing says you can't still make it, just get a normal job and keep writing on the side dummy. if the desire has compelled you to goof your life up this hard then you'll probably still be writing once you unfuck yourself so skip the whining and fast forward into that inevitable phase now and delet this thread

This anxiety is mass produced. It is meant to make you feel incomplete. Get off the internet and t.v. for a while. Stop seeing friends. Stop drinking and drugs. Do some light exercise. Teach your child the things you have learned which will be useful to him or her. Learn how to please your wife in bed. Cut out sugar and caffeine. Make discomfort a habit and you will be freed from it at last.

"My life has been the poem I would have writ, but I could not both live and utter it."
-Thoreau

Where abouts do you live?

And mate if you have a wife who will stick by you and support your ambitions, and two loving kids, then I'm sorry but at 29 you shouldn't be sperging out like this. If publishing something b 30 was going to cause you this much butthurt you should have avoided getting tied down.

So you're not a hot-shot 30-year-old big cocked celebrity author, so what? This will strengthen you and force you to reconsider your priorities. If you were still working and hadn't taken the time off, you'd hate yourself and resent your family.

What's your book about anyway?

>"My life has been the poem I would have writ, but I could not both live and utter it."
>-Thoreau
Absolutely based meme pond author. This quote contains the entire content of 20th century philosophy and more

Write a book about the last year of your life
Thank me later

memoir and autobiography may sell well but they're the literary equivalent of a loud fart

I wish he would have written something about meditation technique; but maybe he did not need a technique.

Oh, that's another thing.

We started out living together in the deep south, where I had a better job and only the inkling of any literary goals. My wife was with a man then who was completely different from who he is now. I was not bitter or tired or distant. I was warm and creative and flourishing in every possible way. Without even really trying, I got a poem published. That was about six years ago. After that poem was published, I got the idea in my head that I could continue to pursue a literary life, with no delusions that I would ever want to turn it into a career.

But I had started in on a novel that I really believed in, unlike the numerous other false starts that I'd discarded before it. So, I went all in and moved my family to the middle of nowhere Illinois. I put myself into massive debt getting us here in one piece and supported the family while we looked for new jobs and a place to live. I thought that I'd be able to find some more truth here and some inspiration. I was right, I guess, because moving to the Midwest absolutely spurred me on toward completing the novel.

So now the wife has a good job and is making all the right moves toward having an even better career. Meanwhile, I essentially live like a homeless person, except I do have a place to sleep at night. But I spend my days walking the streets and sleeping in my car because my life has lost most/all of its meaning. I still take care of my family and fulfill all of my obligations to them, of course, and I do it with an authentic joy in my heart. But I no longer have a sense of purpose or identity.

I feel like someday I might just disappear. As though I had just been playing a character and using my family as a prop to help me write my novel and now that it's done, I don't need them anymore. Or maybe I associate them so dearly with the novel itself that I need to leave them behind too if I want to get those ideas out of my head and move on as a human being.

The book is about a child dealing with the aftermath of being abused sexually by a priest, essentially. The narrative is straightforward, but I went to great lengths to make it rewarding and literary.

Sorry dude I laughed. There was a massive literary hit on that subject like 2 years ago (A Little Life) so chances are you will not be rocketed into significance anytime soon. We all walk down blind alleys at times. Hell to me it sounds like you are living a good life.

Judging from the way youre writing now, I bet your book is pretentious horseshit.

Stop indentifying as a 'writer'. Actually live your life experiences. Never write anything with the intention of selling it or making it big - write it because you enjoy writing. You've gone about this all the wrong way.

Kys

I still don't know if you're LARPing in this thread, but don't leave your family, that's a shitty thing to do. Why not try and write some poems / short stories and submit them in the meantime?

Life is fucking hard man, the earlier people realize this and lower their expectations the better IMO. Sit down with your wife and explain what the situation, is, tell her you still want to get published and ask what she thinks. Maybe she'll let you be her special little writer. I read about a Texas lawyer who quit at ~27 to become an author and his wife sustained them both while he wrote despite not getting published until his late 30s or 40s.

Either way, life is brutal and very rarely are white people content today with just "getting by" and being grateful for just that. It's about marketing yourself, shouting louder than the rest, shoving your way to the head of the pack, etc.

Sherwood Anderson busted his ass until his 40s before writing full-time after a breakdown, but nobody thinks any less of him for not being the moder-tier 25-year-old writing an era-defining 700 page novel which gets ever girl between the ages of 16 and 25 as wet as a carwash and makes him a millionaire overnight. Just deal with it. For whatever reason that's not something that's happened. Hating yourself is fine, and longing for self-destruction is fine, and treating poverty or whatever as a romantic ideal is fine, but in the end what matters is one word, and then another, and then another, revealing something to people for a purpose.

Be grateful if you can. Take your wife and kids out for lunch tonight. Then have a long talk with your wife and be honest with her and most importantly with your self.

My novel is very different from that one, based on the plot summary.

And to your point The book wasn't written with success or sales in mind. But after pouring so much time and effort into it, I realized that I had nothing to show for it and so began to pursue those things. I love writing more than anything else, it's the one thing I've ever stuck with or taken seriously in my life.
But yes, I would like to kill myself :)

>29 years old
>writing "But yes, I would like to kill myself :)"

Guaranteed LARP. I used to post LARP threads myself to get a feel about how potential choices I was going to make in life might be perceived. But claiming to be 29, having a family etc, and posting that just outs you as a roleplayer. Quit fucking around kid. Some people actually have to struggle in life.

>Take your wife and kids out for lunch tonight.

>lunch
>tonight

yeah haha same

I'm not LARPing, by the way.

I never made any mention of wanting to be a billionaire or even being successful, did I? Why did everyone assume I was depressed or disappointed because I didn't become a literary legend overnight?

That's absolutely not something I'm struggling with in the least. I started writing because I was passionate about it and it made me feel good. To that end, I consider the time I spent writing my novel not wasted.

But in moments when my wife says, "I hate your book, I wish you never wrote it," or, "I thought you were going to be nicer once the book was done?" I feel like a failure. And I feel even worse that I think she's being a fool and that she only has herself to blame for not pursuing her own passions.

You are a failure if you act like a child towards your wife, who is a diamond for sticking by you when most women would drop you. Anyway, you're boring me now with your self-pity. Grow up and go speak to your wife, spend time with your kids and write more if you love it so much...I still think you're LARPing.

>But after pouring so much time and effort into it
>1 year

neopets is dope

THIS
listen to this guy, if you're not larping.

You fucking absolute autist. Everyone knows there is no $ in writing. Are you stupid? Write for fun, if it happens it happens but don't bet the fucking house on it. It's simple odds. I don't feel bad for you at all.

So many retards fall for the pursue-your-dreams meme and put all of their eggs in one basket. Writing should be a side project. OP expected his wife to be his crutch.

>But in moments when my wife says, "I hate your book, I wish you never wrote it," or, "I thought you were going to be nicer once the book was done?" I feel like a failure

The book isnt the problem, dumbshit. You could have spent 2 years, 5 years, 10 years writing some unpublishable hot garbage and it still wouldn't be the point. Obviously, the problem is: you're ignoring your wife and kids.

Write your fucking novel, quit your job, stay up until 6am, whatever. But spend time with your family and be nice to your wife. Your wife doesn't hate the book she hates the fact that you're acting like a selfish, self-obsessed arsehole.

You should read "A fan's notes" by Exley. You remind me of him

This.
Hope it works out, failure-user.

Also
This seems like it hit the nail on the head.

>I think she's being a fool and that she only has herself to blame for not pursuing her own passions
>And I feel even worse

Your wife is upset that you're neglecting her...

....and you respond to this by assuming that she's only upset that she didn't pursue her own wild fantasy, consider her foolish for feeling upset, and then feel sorry for yourself because you feel bad about having to have that thought?

You're delusional and conceited.

ok.

> a year... six months
>fucked my life up

It's 1 year and a half. It's barely any time. You're 29. You haven't fucked up anything.

>When they'd come to me crying and saying that I wasn't giving them enough attention, I'd tell them that it's all going to be worth it in the end because the book will sell.

They don't want your money, they want your time and attention

>All of the bad choices I made as a kid because I thought the life experiences would make me a better writer
You forced life experiences so you'd have something to write about? That's incredibly stupid. You're putting the cart before the horse, and you will never gain anything doing that. If you want inspiration, have genuine, natural life experiences which you live through and learn from and can reflect on.

>I think it has some literary merit
Noone care what you think. You can't assign literary merit to your own work.

>But the novel is all I have
You have a wife and children

>no one is impressed when I tell them I wrote a novel. They either don't know how much work goes into the process or they don't care because I haven't turned it into a career yet.
Stop telling people you wrote a novel expecting them to be impressed just because you put time into it. A lot of people put a lot of time and effort into the things they do, and I doubt you ever appreciate it. What about the people who built your house? Designed your car? What about your wife? Are you impressed with all the work she has put in raising your children over the past year?
People will be impressed by your book if they read it and enjoy it. You sound like you feel entitled to praise - you're not. You should be grateful you even had the time and resource to write your book over the year, when many, many others barely have any time to themselves because they work difficult, thankless jobs.

>My literary friends are impressed and they'll say it's brilliant, I'm a genius, they never could have done it, etc.
>they'll say
Why do you think it's a certainty that your friends will say all these wonderful things to you? Do you really think you're a literary genius?

>But they're all hobbyist fucks who simply never took it so far as to actually put in the work and finish a project.
Why are you calling your friends "fucks" and criticizing them like this? Do you think you're better than they are because you wrote one novel? Do you not respect their opinions because they've never completed a project like you have? If you don't, then why the fuck are you complaining about not getting praise and recognition from the common man who "don't know how much work goes into the process"?

>this is my life
You have a wife and kids

>I could... try
>But at this point, I don't even know if it's worth the trouble
You're written one (1) novel. You've been trying to publish it for half (0.5) a year.

You're an asshat.

>But in moments when my wife says, "I hate your book, I wish you never wrote it," or, "I thought you were going to be nicer once the book was done?" I feel like a failure
You should.

10/10

godly post

is the time paradox gud shud i torrent it