Me at 16: I'm going to be the next James Joyce

Me at 16: I'm going to be the next James Joyce.
Me at 25: I hope I'm good enough to be published by somebody.

How have your expectations changed, Veeky Forums?

In the similar fashion. I'm still determined I'll write something good, but I now understand the fatuity of comparing myself to or hoping one day to measure up to the likes of Joyce, Faulkner, etc.

Me at 18: Got this awesome idea for a book; if I practice writing short stories then when I get older I'll be good enough at writing to do my idea justice.
Me at 26: Fuck, it didn't work.

art isn't a competition

...

if you spent 9 years writing instead of worrying about your ability to write you would have something published

You sure you're talkin to me and not yourself?

>me at 18
I'm going to be a literature professor adored by my students and admired by my family.

>me at 26
If I get this TAship, I'll be ecstatic.

2deep4myhotcholateiforgotinthemicrowave

what is another human if not a reflection of yourself? im merely communicating with myself via christ consciousness, hijacking your mind to use as a proxy so as to filter the information and feed it back to me in a form more palatable than the harsh words my own thoughts are heavy with.

WHHOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAA

Me at 11: I have no desire to do or become anything in life
Me at 16: I have no desire to do or become anything in life
Me at 22: I have no desire to do or become anything in life

>me at 18: write first poem
>me at 19: start speaking with irish accent
>me at 22: get eyepatch
>me at 25: develop fart fetish
am i genius yet?

this basically.

Same.

Me at 16: Im gonna read Ulysses
Me at 25: Well, its gonna happen someday

ANXIETY
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>me at 16: I'm going to be a famous fantasy author like R.A. Salvatore and J.R.R. Tolkien
>me at 24: I'm going to write weird fantasy like China Mieville and magical realism like Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Ah yes, the old "the more words you put on paper, regardless of the mental state you were in while doing it, the better a writer of literature will you become"

Me at 16: Golly Gosh i sure do luuuurve reading
Me at 20: Golly Gosh i sure do luuuurve reading and writing

Me at 16: I:m going to be a surgeon and marry into wealth

Me at 24: if I write sad unhinged poems I can deal with neurotic women dumping me and also have more sex with neurotic women

Everything is now about chaining together a series of destructive affairs. Remember, if you dress well and write, you're not an aspie, you're eccentric or at least can convince women this for a couple weeks at a time

Me at 16: I'm better than other people
Me Now: I am demonstrably better than other people

That's pretty much me except I somehow always expected it would happen this way.

Sometimes I wish I had the same gusto when I was 5. I used to shit out tonnes of random stories with the most bizarre plots. In school I never even did whatever I was supposed to be doing.

>Me at 16

Horror books and LSD and the grateful dead are cool

>Me in my 20s

Postmodern novels and ketamine and the disco biscuits are cool

>me at 16:
can't wait to be a lawyer and a senator later on in life

>me at 20:
so if i finish my highly experimental 1k page debut next year that gives me about 2 years to rewrite it. oops time to send him some stories to magazines now

Me at 12: I'm going to write a Star Wars/Harry Potter ripoff.

Me at 16: I'm going to write an awesome steam punk fantasy adventure story!

Me at 18: I'll probably never finish it and making money on writing is an unrealistic dream. Might as well go STEM.

Me at 19: Well STEM isn't working out, but I still like to write. Oh look Veeky Forums has a book board. I miss reading and writing.

Me at 20: I'm going to build on what McCarthy was doing in Blood Meridian. I'm going to define a new genre of literary fiction.

Me at 21: I'm going to finish this fucking book by 25 or I am going to kill myself. Everything else is fucked.

Me at 22: Back at a different STEM degree. I just want life not to be hell, but that is too much to ask. I'm so alone. Reading is my only peace.Still trying to write. Working as hard with little expectation. Still plan to probably kill myself at 25 if my life is still hell.

>the truth

MXE > Ketamine

me at 16: i'm going to be in the NBA (im a 5 foot 10 white guy btw)
me at 25: nuff said

same here

past me: I'm gonna do something great one day
me now: I'd probably be okay with being known by a small group of people
future me: I'll just keep it to myself

oh shit, whats up Dellavedova

not so fast kid,
you're wrong!

me at 17: I'ma be like if Slavoj Zizek wrote great fiction on the side
me at 20: social criticism is a bunch of guys jerking themselves off, literature is a bunch of henry millers congratulating themselves for being cooler than all the people around them... I'm just gonna study math and analytic philosophy and try to go to grad school
me at 23: is it boring to be an actuary? maybe I can just retire young

Me at 18: I'm going to travel the world with just the clothes on my back and a little money and read and enjoy life. I'm going to go through SE Asia and Latin America and wherever my path takes me and have adventures and see where that takes me.

Me at 22: I am so lonely. I miss my ex-girlfriend so much. She left me 2 months ago. I want another woman in my life. I need another woman, a new steady girlfriend. I want a new companion, but I need money if I realistically want this. I need an apartment, money to go on dates, money for my car payments. To get money and be attractive to a new woman, I need to go to grad school and get my Master's degree because I chose a Geology BS. To go to grad school, I need to give up on my plans to travel and see the world. I am torn and lost and I don't know what to do. I am torn between the only 2 desires I have in life: Women or Adventure. Because realistically, I can't have both.

me at 14: I'm going to write a masterpiece to show the world my life meant something

me at 16: I should try and get an interest in reading first

me now: Screw the writing

me at 16: I like writing whoo look at me
me at 16.5: lol I have nothing to say
me at 22: Well sir I am a detail-oriented team player with outstanding communication skills and a great attitude

>Well sir I am a detail-oriented team player with outstanding communication skills and a great attitude

These threads always scare me. I've always considered myself talented with words and language and hope one day I can aspire with it, but threads like this make it seem like everyone else thinks they're just as naturally gifted as I do.

me at 14: school is killing me i need to start writing things down
me at 16: maybe i could go into like the arts or something
me at 17: or maybe it would just be easier to go into journalism since everyone wants me to go to college
me at 18: journalism is okay but i could just drop out and i would rather have a book than a degree anyway
me at 20: oh shit i think i have an idea for a book i'd hate to wake up 25 without that
me at 21: oh shit this could really come together
me at 22: oh god real life is tearing me apart i hope i survive long enough to finish this

I had some thoughts when I was young about writing, then they started making me write in school and I lost what little passion I had for it. I regained it a bit for short times in high school and college. I'm not a writer at heart though, I can describe things and I can try to impose feels but I always ramble and I never have ideas-- I did, sometimes, when I was in school, but I always forgot them.
That's OK though, my thing is writing programs. I never had ideas for that either but now I finally do and life is good.

most people think that about a few things, and they're often wrong and later forget they thought they were good unless something reminds them
it stands to reason most of your traditional book-type nerds have thought it about writing once or twice, if not continuously, and, well, here we are

>me at 17
i should study computer science
>me at 18
I should study economics
>me at 19
I should study math
>me at 20
I should have been literature all along. It's the only think I ever cared about

oh well, I'll just finish my economics degree and keep attending literature classes
I doubt I'll ever be famous but I don't really care. I just want to have financial stability and be able to pursue my passions without the hindrance of money, which is truly worthless.

thus I've matured, I think

>western literature is dead, you should only spend your time reading the canon
>yeah I'm going to write a masterpiece one day

Pick precisely one

>literature is dead
only illiterates say this, and who cares about them?

>one day I can aspire with it
>can aspire with it
>aspire with

not the same guy but I don't know if anybody can write a book anymore. I couldn't think of any reason why this would be, but open a fresh contemporary classic and you will find the heavy handed work of the over-appreciated kids who can't get six pages without mentioning post colonial issues or reaching for literary allusions. maybe it is all the scholarship these poor saps read

our language is being taken in fresh directions..

have you taken a contemporary literature class at your university? You actually get good exposure to the new authors
even 50 years ago now we had nabokov, pynchon, dfw, then more recently I like one native american writer in california and malcolm gladwell, levitt, ben fountain
like it seems that people who don't like contemporary lit just haven't read it, to me at least.

And I definitely don't trust people on Veeky Forums to give new movement's a read, that's for sure. So obsessed with appearance they miss the joy of reading and exploring this enormous community
which is fine, of course. I don't expect anything from this website, it's anonymous

>15

i think i wanna be a writer

>18

i wanna be a writer

just submitted my first short story to try and get published. Old english teache rhas been kind enough to edit my 'first" novel for me atm

i hope i make you proud lit

>Me at 16: I want to understand Schopenhauer
>Me at 25: I am the last hope of philosophy, the living successor of Fredrich Nietzsche. Everything depends on me.

lol

Just wait

War is coming

>me at 16: literally everything is gay
>me at 25: regularly enacting dominance patrols to ensure the enemy is not given the privilege of mastery over the domain, deploying IEDs in high traffic areas and strongholds, and manufacturing powder and chemical explosives for personal use and sale to other resistance fighters

Me at 16: Would be nice if something I wrote was one day published somewhere.
Me at 21: I'm not very good, but I'm doing my best to improve.
Me at 29: YOU ARE NOT EQUIPPED TO UNDERSTAND MY GENIUS

Me at 16: Holy shit, writing fanfiction is fun as fuck, maybe I should be a writer.
Me at 25: I like writing, but I'm not sure it's what I want to do to with my life. I may want to do something else.
Me at 30: I can't not write.

lol

Me at 16: I don't know what I want to do with my life.
Me at 19: I'm going to be a musician because I like writing songs and playing music.

Me at 21: I'm grounded by crippling anxiety and the idea of going on tour scares the hell out of me. This is as far as I will ever be able to go with music.

Me at 23: I have no one except my writing. And I'm reasonably happy. Reasonably optimistic about it. But I know failure is imminent. I would like to die but suicide scares me too much.

...

Me at 16: Think I might jerk off. I don't feel like doing homework; then again, I never feel like doing homework. I'm tired. I suck.

By the age of sixteen I had master the typewriter to the blinding speed of thirty words a minute. At which time I took an odd sense of respect for those who chose to sit behind said device voluntarily. I was the last class at my school to ever see a typewriter.

By the age of twenty-five or so, online gaming had created within me, we will say, "a sense of obligation". When it came to the use of the 108, being somewhat expressive, my need to communicate rose. To both those I have defeated in battle as well as those who were indeed the 'just one more' I lost to before retiring for the evening; I needed to share.

"noob".
"bot..."

Then I hit my mid thirties. I've written two novels, and have about three chapters into 4 others. Nothing published yet, but an accumulated mass just shy of half of a million words.

I'll publish something. When I find the time. Too busy writing.

Me at 16: This music thing is going great, my little summer tours have gone so well! I'll major in performance to keep this going.
Me at 18: Music theory sucks the joy out of music, but I'm enjoying this writing thing.
Me at 19: I'll be the next Hemingway!
Me at 23 (now): I hope I can make it past publishing in these smaller mags. Editing is a worthy pursuit, and I know I'm good at it. Maybe if I get fed up with the lack of success.

Mark Twain said it best,

"Writing is easy, you just cross out the shit words."

inb5 snarky comments

Definitely an improvement

id love to be able to have ambitions and things like that
i spent most of my energy trying to convince myself to go outside occasionally to buy groceries so i wont die
whats it like to live a real life

Me at now: suicide is looking more inviting every minute

If any of you coyld go back to being sixteen again, what would you change to make this a reality?

Finish high school early instead of piddling around with a less-than-half day the last year, not choose the safe option of going to a nearby community college first, actually send out applications to major schools, forego a relationship and its requisite drama until well into graduate school.

None of that shit matters as long as you read and write consistently (obsessively). You will learn very little about writing in a creative writing program, much less a graduate one.

You can blame no one but yourself for not being great, and the glorified excuses you've listed here are not sufficient.

I'm not one of the people who wanted to write (creatively, at least). I'm .

I'm fairly sure all of what I mentioned would have helped me become a professor faster, and a better one too, probably.

Yup, sorry I misidentified you.

me at 01:35: Joyce is to me as flatulence is the roaring brass trumpet, I am become writer - the creator of worlds.

me at 02:40 Oh man at least I didn't email this to anyone.

Same here. How do I recover my childhood's creative energy, Veeky Forums?

>Me at 16: Oh man, I have this awesome idea for a book!

>Me at 18: Geez, I've got all these ideas but for some reason I find no joy or fulfillment in my attempts to actually write novellas or short stories.

>Me at 21: Oh, I just vastly prefer worldbuilding to constructing a narrative. I guess I better start running D&D campaigns and making video games?

Turned out to be a great choice honestly. I'm far more content to just dream up worlds and civilizations for my players than I was while trying to be the next Big Thing in literature, and learning how to program and model 3D objects has been very interesting and fun.

>I am happy and stuff now
Depression soon.

Nope! Never had it before and the last three generations of my family are clear of it - my chances of acquiring that particular mental illness.

Anxiety, on the other hand...

>my chances of acquiring that particular mental illness are exceedingly low*

Aww geez, can't believe I forgot that part.

My expectations haven't changed much.

At 16 I had no idea what I nwated to do with my life and now at 26 I have no idea still.

I have thoughts about being a filmmaker but I can't start writing or practicing so that probably won't happen. I also don't read enough.

me at 18: It doesn't matter if I go to school because my writing will be good enough to sustain a career in the medium. With this short story I will be the next Kafka.
me at 19: I should get a degree so I can sustain myself as I pour my heart into writing. This story's longer than the Metamorphosis
me at 20: School is tedious work, but it will pay off because I love writing enough to sacrifice temporary pleasure. With this new job in academia I will build my experience. Why can't I finish this story, God?
me at 21: This job and work has taught me a lot about what I intend to do within the field of academia. This novel will be finished soon, and whether or not the fruits of my labor will nourish me, I know and understand that they will be sweet-smelling to you O God.

I'd kill myself and get it over with.

I wrote some shit because I was bored and got it published because I wanted weed money lmao
Reading and writing is mostly for fags though.

me at 16: I'm going to write a book
me at 18: ... fuck it I'll get around to it.

I finished my novel a few months ago. At first I tried sending it out to publishers but then I realized I needed an agent. Now I'm trying to write short stories using the same characters in the novel to get my name out there.
I just want somebody to say it's worth publishing, that it's good. I don't mind working on the short stories because I'm having fun with them, but I know my book is good, I wouldn't have spent three years working on it in between uni classes if I didn't think it had potential.
Why, publishing gods?

Does anyone know how to get into editing? I'm not much of a writer but I'm great and finding flaws in writing and I like doing it.

More than likely you'll do an internship first, during/after your Bachelors. A lot of publishing houses offer them.

16: I'm a writer.
18: I'm a pretty good writer.
24: Man, I'm an awful writer.

>they're just as naturally gifted as I do.
2/10
Made me reply

How did you learn 3D modelling? What program do you use?

Me at 12: I got this cool idea that never goes anywhere
Me at 16: I'm overly confident in my abilities
Me at [CURRENT AGE]: I've acco mplished nothing and use Veeky Forums

>You will learn very little about writing in a creative writing program, much less a graduate one.

How true is this? Say my life goal is to become a first rate writer, why shouldn't I get educated to be one? What about the connections getting a writing degree would give me?

>bachelor's degree
whoa whoa whoa what gave you the idea I have money or that I wanted a degree in... whatever it is you're thinking of, instead of an engineering discipline
I just thought editing would be good until I can get to what I really want to do

Me at 15: I'm going to be the American Shakespeare.
Me at 20: I'll settle for the next Dave Eggers.
Me at 25: *types 'good synonym' into google*

Me at 16: Why arent girls having sexual intercourse with me
Met at 18: Didnt that Nietzsche fella say something cool and profound about suicide once
Me at 22: Well read people always seem to be so smug. I want to be smug.
Me at 24: Welp fell for another Veeky Forums meme book, only took up 6 months of my life.
Me at 26: If I keep reading this book, and never put it down I will never have to face my black dog again

Did I post here and forget?

I relate a lot with you user, but I diidn't change majors. Still losing my mind on the same STEM major for 3 years already.

>me at 20
Maybe I'll do some writing on the side and self publish in Amazon e-books.
>me at 24
Maybe I'll do some writing on the side and self publish in Amazon e-books.

You just know he hit that. John Green gettin' all the prime pussy.

Me at 11: I'll read all this perverse/forbidden stuff aww yea

Me at 14: I'm going to be the next great Marxist scholar

Me at 14.5: I know I read Rabinowich's three texts, Trotsky's Revolution Betrayed, and various anarchist essays on the degeneration (or false promise, depending) of the soviet union last summer, but I can probably avoid repeating that B on my Animal Farm paper by communicating better

Me at 15: I hope I quickly find a way to keep irresponsible and malevolent teachers from exploiting impossibly vague rubrics to assfuck my future

Me at 16: I'll just do STEMshit because this problem would only get worse in academia

Me at 17: I hope I get the fuck out of here before my cunt SJW teacher finds another way to cynically exploit the disciplinary process to punish me for my materialist critiques of intersectionality and my desire to liberalize drug policy, and without saying anything with the barest bit of insight about Brecht's Galileo lest I push her to confront her own contradictions with the self-awareness of a shoelace.

Me at 18: I'll be fine with the extremely liberal college I've chosen; this intersectional pseudo-leftist garbage is just a passing fad anyway and the physical sciences are completely apolitical regardless. I'm sure nobody gives shit grades for political reasons here.

>Gamergate ensues

Me at 19: I hope these allegations blow over

Me at 19.5: I hope I can find a school that will respect me as a human being

Me at 20: I hope I can stop feeling like shit long enough to read again or submit more applications

Me at 16: I'm going to be the next Dennis Bergkamp.
Me at 19: Why did you take me knees away, God?
Me at 24: I'm going to be good enough to make a living off writing/editing screenplays.
Me at 28: I'm going to keep drinking and lying to my parents about my work until they kick me out or I die.

Me at 15: I want to do art and writing!

Me at 16: Gee, I suck at art and writing. No teacher wants to help me get through with the barrage of questions I throw at them. I'll plow through it and see how it goes, just like how tinkers done it in the past!

Me at 18: My work sucks, everything sucks, end my life as I have no talent or clear sight in these fields. I'll just read some more books and more guide/tutorial books on how to do things and see if it helps.

Me at 19: I dropped the ball, went into a depressive state as I let my inner voice get the best of me. Began to smoke to relieve some stress.

Me at 21: How do I write again? How do I draw again? What was the happiness I had back when I was 15? Wheres that optimism I had? I want it all back.

You might look into technical editing then. Most editing jobs for creative writing want an English degree.