Hey Veeky Forums

I have several ideas about the basic structure of a plot and the perspective from which the narrative will be written. In this case I had the idea of two contrasting characters who are nonetheless forced to spend a great deal of time together. I tried and tried and tried to write it, often getting 20k words into the story before deleting it. I was being too desperate in my attempt to be humorous and entertaining, and thus reducing characters and plot to a cartoon-like farce. I then remembered some books I had read with a similar general narrative structure and read some others with a similar structure, and one of these books influenced me so much that I knew who the narrator would be, what the style of writing would be like, and so on. I tried and tried again to get it right and now I feel I've at least achieved something that I'm not repulsed by the following day. I suppose I'm attracted by rather sober and carefully articulated novels and this often makes my own writing seem rather antiquated and formal, so I've had to try and write in a way that isn't just adopting a falsely casual and overly-familiar tone and also isn't boring the reader or causing them to suspect me of being pretentious and humourless. I have tried to write without a plan / outline in the past and it usually goes badly, though on occasion it has allowed me to get an insight into what should happen next that detached and strict planning wouldn't have allowed. Now I have several key events that must take place, several characters who must be introduced, and an ending that must take conclude the novel. Whether or not I will have more ideas between these events I don't know. But really I delete most of what I write because it just seems so false and affected. I sort of feel that the truest form of expression exists in my thought, and then perhaps in my anonymous posts on here, and then in a sort of potentially public written form. At the last stage I feel an immense pressure to have every single detail in order, which often makes the writing seem as though it is written with the burden of an immense anxiety and is therefore obviously rather offputting and false. The best writing to me is the kind of stuff that seems like it had to be written, that the author had no choice but to write it and which doesn't involve any obvious tricks or details included for the sake of keeping the reader entertained. It's the same in comedy, cinema, everything. If I spot something that looks like it was included because the guy behind it was scared I was going to stop paying attention it makes me want to puke, really.

I think I will be able to find work, but the thing is I hate my kind of work and have no real "career" ambitions in the sense of dedicating myself to my job. I realize that may sound narcissistic or something but unless I have a comfortable job in publishing or something I'm not going to be interested in spending any significant energy or interest in my job. So yes I might be able to find work but it'll probably still be the kind of shit that a 21-year-old can do. Sometimes I consider going back to college or something and trying to build a career and climb the ladder but I feel it'll distract me from my writing too much. I think about this a lot and it really makes me anxious. I don't have any friends, which is largely a consequence of my own introversion and partly a consequence of my poor decisions in life and stubborn refusal to sort of "start over" and "reach out" to the few people whose company I enjoyed in the past. My family have encouraged me to quit (they don't know I write) but I sense their motivations are sincere but ultimately unhealthy, in the sense that their desire to see me safe and happy could potentially lead to my being an Ignatius-like figure at home writing his manifesto and ranting against degeneracy from his room in the basement. Also partly for family reasons I feel an intense pressure to succeed and to not humiliate myself. While this pressure helps me in some ways in other ways it makes me a very unhappy individual. And I don't really understand the Gauguin reference (I'm looking it up on wikipedia now), but thank you.

My only fear (and I realize fear shouldn't dominate the decisions I make in life) is that I will end up trapped and alone, too old to start again and too disillusioned to want to try. I recently read about Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber) and I relate quite a bit to his personality (though not to the degree of his hostility etc) and after finding out that he dropped out of his career and ended up spending decades working in gas stations and so on, basically drifting all over the place with no friends and a growing resentment against the world, I fear that I will end up the same way. I am not all that sociable and my capacity to be optimistic and enthusiastic and charm my way into a successful social position is entirely lacking. I thought about going back to college to study creative writing for a year but I realize that I am just not suited to that environment at all any more, if I ever was. I just see this deep chasm below me at all times and often suspect that any failure on my part will lead to me tumbling down without the ability to escape. Thank you for your reply and encouragement.

I'm the guy who asked about your writing routine. I get where you're coming from. I was almost a business graduate and had some really great internships but then woke up and had a seizure one morning. Three years later, as I finally composed my mind (and slowly gathered the energy to tackle my degree), I realized that I was stuck in that pit of despair for so long that I lost any passion for business I once had. It takes incredible amounts of willpower to get through a chapter of a business textbook and I haven't been doing well. If only I went with writing (be it English or Creative Writing) when the Academic Counselor asked me what kind of courses I enjoyed, I'd have been fine. Instead I lied because I didn't want to go through another 4 years of school and waste all the credits I had transferred to my new University).
If I could go back in time, I would start over and pick writing over anything. I fucked up big time.

just be rational and realize that your writing is probably shit

Sounds like you'll regret not quitting now in order to write. Especially if you don't enjoy your job. Good luck, bruv

Hey, I hate to hear that though of course it's impossible to say whether you'd have regretted taking English if you ended up unemployed or something. I mean I studied Eng Lit. and was out of work for a long time after college, and I became so desperate that it's hard to believe in retrospect. Do you have any literary ambitions? What do you hope to achieve in life? It sounds lame and naive but I really do believe that it's never too late. If you are incapable of being contented without having published a novel I would assume that it really is the thing for you. I've read a lot of books by often young guys who have studied creative writing for years and then worked a cozy job while pushing out their debut novel, and in many cases it's just flat and completely lacking in intensity or anything worthy of sustained interest. I feel like my life is pretty fucked, and that in many ways I am too far gone, but I'm starting not to care so much. Hubert Selby Jr. was pretty old when he suddenly became burdened by the fact he was going to die someday, and realizing he knew how to put one word in front of another he started to write and continued until his first book finally came out. There are plenty of cases like that, though admittedly it's not the norm. I wish you luck and though I hate giving advice I would encourage you (since it's worked for me) not to dwell on past failures for too long (though it is probably useful to dwell sometimes, if only to give you the restlessness to proceed).

Thank you.

>Would it be retarded, in your opinion, to quit this job and finish the book?

Yes, it would be.

You've already written half the book while working. Just write the other half.

But the really retarded thing is you queried a (presumably fiction) book without finishing it first.

That said, if you found one agent willing to read the full manuscript, you can always probably find another.

I also just noticed you said "publishing house" and not agent, which is actually very suspect.

Yeah you've gotta be careful about vanity publishers. It's better to self publish than trust them. They'll keep asking you for money for stuff you can do yourself.

I agree with this guy

It was retarded of you to send them a sample without having finished it first. You're somewhat screwed now because they expected you to have the whole thing already.

That and is this some tiny indie publishing house or something? There isn't much that goes through slush piles at the big ones and most publishers don't even take unsolicited submissions.

It's not a vanity publisher. It's an independent publishing house which has a history of publishing the debut work of a bunch of writers who have then sealed second and third deal contracts with major houses, which is obviously my ambition.

I am a little screwed however I only got the email today and I can go at least two weeks without responding without it seeming rude.

Link to the publisher's site.

This will never be answered. Faggot OPs think they'll be so important one day they dont want a chance to be connected to here.

This delusion of grandeur is funny as hell. Mediocre writers like this make me laugh. It isn't about the writing for them. Its about becoming a lazy POS celeb like Jon gren who they "hate"

>post your short story you got pubbed so we can judge your skills
>noooooo my IMAGE will be tarnished

If it's a legitimate publishing place and your job is shit/menial then go for it. Keep an ear out for job opportunities though in case it goes to shit and budget properly.

Why the butthurt about this? Look what happened to Dev from DIIV when he got linked to /mu/.

Just do it user there's enough time that you can come back from anything

He used a tripcode and said words like faggot or nigger with it. Retard got what he deserved.

I've chatted with that dude at a Diiv show in Atlanta. Lmao Dude was somewhat being a dick and had his focus on this random girl at the show. Lmao That whole band are short as hell though

i heard the usa was a free country where everybody could express freely any opinion and stuff

You heard wrong, tripfag-chan. The court of public opinion isn't something the first amendment protects you against. I don't care that he said those things, I just think it's retarded to say them in a context where you're going to be clearly identified for saying them in this day and age where people get fired over shit they do online.

There are dozens of humble brag threads like this. Ego tripping losers.
>i got short/novel pubbed! b-but i hab problems, help me!
>i won't let you know where or link it
>i just wanna feel like "real writer"

>data entry

Quit you faggot. You can find those jobs easily by strapping on a job helmet and squeeze down into a job cannon and fire off into job land, where jobs grow on little jobbies

bump

Don't quit your job. Push harder to write the book.

did anyone infringe on that freedom?

Literal cuckold attitude

>just grind yourself down bro, writing isn't that important ! :)

Who is this cum conquistador

Wow! Eggman really benefited from transitioning to female!

The point isn't to grind himself down, the point is to find his limit, retain structure and be motivated by a deadline. Quitting his job removes any kind of reward system from his life and might allow him to procrastinate, which, based on his descriptions of himself, I think he would.

I don't think it's stupid for an artist to quit their day job to focus on their craft. In fact, you can make it your job by getting a grant (which some publishers actually volunteer to help a submitting author get, if not their agents). But OP sounds conflicted and depressed about a lot of things, and in that situation, the worst thing to do is to relieve yourself of external pressures, if your goal is to be productive.

You're a literal cuckold with a naive perspective. Knausgaard barely worked throughout his twenties, often went on the dole or rented cabins in the middle of nowhere to write. Yukiio Mishima claimed he almost fell in front of his commuter train because he was so tired and asked that his father allow him to quit his job, which he did. Kerouac barely worked throughout his twenties. Patrick Suskind was funded by his parents throughout his twenties. Orhan Pamuk lived with his mother from the age of 22 until the age of 32. Cormac McCarthy avoided work and either bummed on sofas or lived without hot water so he could write. Raymond Carver celebrated being made redundant since it allowed him more time to write. Hermingway """"worked"""" as a journalist while goofing around in Paris with his buddies. Tao Lin never worked a full-time job and instead allowed his parents to buy him an apartment in central New York so he could work part-time and write. I can go on and on (believe me). Proust barely worked. Tolstoy retreated to his parents' estate in order to write. Salinger rented a cabin in rural New York in his twenties. Joshua Ferris quit his job and didn't work for a year while writing his debut novel. Do you literally need any more examples kiddo? *stubs cigarette* The fact is you haven't got a clue what it takes to write a meaningful and interesting novel. You just don't. You're part of this delusional and quixotic underclass of cultural outsiders who think a man can work in a mineshaft for nine hours and still spend the few hours left in his day to write Ulysses. You're an idiot. A fool. You're anti-art.

How is the proccess of sending the book? I've read a bit about it on the internet, but theres mixed opinions. Some people straight up send the chapters and others send a letter of presentation where they explain the plot, maybe add an example of the prose and talk a bit about themselves, their motivations and whatnot.

Sorry if my english sucks dick, its not even my second language.

nice

And before says "Kafka!" I'll have to remind you literal children that he hated the 9-5 job and eventually worked only until 2pm, sometimes taking long periods off work for tuberculosis treatment. Heard of William Styron? Forced his employers to sack him at the age of 22 since he knew he couldn't write while working a full-time job. J.K Rowling? Welfare baby. James Joyce? Worked as few hours as he could tutoring English in Italy. David Foster Wallace: barely worked a day in his life, quit two jobs (security and at a country club) after days because he found the early mornings too tough. Orwell was a bum. Steinbeck moved to his relative's cabin and lived there for at least a year with his wife. Faulkner? Spent his time at work reading until he was sacked. Eugenides: Spent his twenties bumming around Europe with his rich family then took a cosy job at a poetry organisation. Douglas Adams lived with his mother for a year at the age of 24 and wrote Hitchhiker's Guide in that time. Harper Lee went NEET to write her novel. Paulo Coelho barely worked until he was 40 and spent his time bumming around Spain and Latin America. Same goes for Bolano. Franzen was writing "eight hours a day" for years before his first novel was published, I guess he wasn't working. that much. Henry Miller dropped out. P.K. Dick worked part-time at a record store and even dropped that gig to write full-time. Nietzsche isolated himself in a rural cabin. Wittgenstein did the same. There's a trend here folks and you'd have to be a fool not to see it.

Where are you from? Chances are if English isn't your first language you have life on easy mode and getting published will be a walk in the park.

Spain.

There you go. Your main competition is Luna Miguel. The most popular contemporary writer in your country isn't even Spanish (Ben Brooks). Where in Spain do you live?

I live in Madrid. Why does it matter though?

That's a wonderful speech, but you're unloading it without prompting. I made no comment on whether or not he can write while working. Although, on that point, it's you delusional, by the degree of your presumption. Why would I assume he's writing Ulysses? Why should I assume he's more than a workaday writer?

If OP feels he can finish the book and he has the resources to do it, he should, regardless of the outcome. But I'm not going to tell him he can. I have nothing to go on besides this topic, and the fact of this topic suggests he's a procrastinator.

Quite your job and write. Be like Edgar Allan Poe, struggling to make ends meet until the end of his miserable life at age 40. You know, he only made $17 from The Raven, and it was very famous in his time.

Because it's a fucking poem. And poetry is dumb.

Have you considered talking with the boss at your job? Tell him whats going on. That you can publish that book etc.

If he is a wise person, you two will find a solution (eg you work part time for a year).

Sit down, shut up, listen to this, be inspired and write. Non stop.

youtube.com/watch?v=GNCkWQnd8X0

I work for a small and rapidly growing company. Although the work is easy it's still pretty important that I'm there. He's a nice guy and I've never taken a day off sick but still I really do want to keep this writing thing to myself. There is too much potential for humiliation here. He often relies on me to do specific jobs and since I've been there pretty much since the company started I get things done way quicker since I understand it. Knut Hamsun was pretty much sponsored by one of his wealthy bosses who saw his literary potential, but in my case it's not something I really want to bring to the table. I appreciate the suggestion however and have thought about it (working from home and fewer hours).

I do write as much as I can, but the fact is I am in work for nine hours and then have to commute an hour home. By this time I am not only exhausted but any work I do write in the few hours remaining is not to the standard I know it could be. I've tried motivating myself and telling myself I can be the one guy who produces something of merit while also living this way but it seems unrealistic, as with women who have stresssful careers but also want to be good mothers.

another thing to note is that input from the outer world is always useful input. The pain today is the piece of art tomorrow.

if this dude is not someone to which you can talk about these things (are you sure?), then you have my ok. Quit the job and realize your dream.

It's quite simple.

FAKE AN ILLNESS. Write your ass off for however long you can milk it, then you have a couple of options:

1. Straight up quit your job and follower your passion (this is what I did and what I recommend) If youre healthy and can make it working part-time jobs, then it's much better to work on your writing

2. Stay at your job, and continue writing as a hobby rather than a career.

It sounds like you want to quit, but youre just to scared, which is quite understandable. It's scary, but life is short, and if worse comes to worse, you'll just get another shitty job but without a title.

You're preaching to the choir here, because most of us who do write here are either NEETs or borderline NEETs.

Not true at all.

I have been on Veeky Forums for years and any time someone says they are quitting their job to write full-time for a while or whatever they are met overwhelmingly with comments telling them they're mediocre, shit, and so on. Veeky Forums's userbase is unfortunately pretty anti-art and most people here are only here for the "le epic booktuber girl breakdown" meme and the usual stupid shitposting which doesn't seem stupid because it's literature or philosophy-related. There's no supportive community here at all.

But it wasn't always like this.

I'll offer some sensible support to him. Stay at your job to support yourself while you write. If you could knock out half of your novel this quickly, the rest can be done just as easily. Don't end up homeless or something. If you really want to quit, either learn to write many pieces quickly and keep up a continual inflow of money, or create a bestseller that turns into a tv show or movie franchise and ride the wave. Or maybe look into other kinds of jobs or even moving to countries where you can live like a king on American currency. The most important thing is not to die on the street.

I'd say quit the job, if you are even thinking about quiting it's time to move on

OP here. It took me a while to write those three chapters, and has taken me a long time to write as much as I have since. The fact is I have half a book to write AND EDIT in the next month or so.

Don't most people think of quitting their jobs though? I've experienced unemployment and it made me so desperate and depressed. I was at least young when that initially happened, it would be worse if I couldn't find anything at my age, especially if employers start to question why I quit without anything lined up. I could lie I suppose and say I had to nurse a family member or something or that I worked some part-time job in the meantime but still, there's such an intense focus on these things today that I do worry about it a lot.

If you have a way of supporting yourself without work then I'd say do it. If you don't then find a way of working part-time and still managing to live. You can always move somewhere very cheap and do some freelancing work online.

Doing a shitty job is never worth it and if you do manage to get published you'll get a tiny advance to help you for a few weeks and opportunities to get work related to writing.

If you're young it really doesn't matter. You need to view this as any other career. tells you that his mother makes less than minimum wage on royalties, which is true. But she's also a fucking moron. Nobody lives on royalties. That's not what being a full-time author means. Every job comes with bullshit that you need to do to get an income.

Next time though, have the book ready when you send off three chapters of a manuscript. There's a good chance you've lost them by taking so long to give them the full thing. But publishing moves slowly and if you're good enough it shouldn't matter.

OP here. Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it I don't think I've lost them, largely because a few years back I sent them another novel which they liked and wanted to take on but I spaghetti'd hard and withdrew. I sent them another one which they disliked, and now this is my third.

>Doing a shitty job is never worth it
I think my own personality and inability to really enjoy life in any significant or consistent sense contributes to my disliking my job. I mean it's easy enough though it's very boring and takes up a lot of my time obviously. But I also understand the modern publishing industry and I don't really want to end up like Poe who tried to live full-time from writing and ended up begging in the streets. This may give me more experience and material to work with etc, but I doubt it. I just have this fear that any failure on my part will be total and irredeemable. I am not a sociable person and I have almost nobody in my life to turn to for advice or support etc, and so the idea of severing the few attachments remaining between myself and "the world" (other people, society, etc) is a huge deal for me. Also I just can't bear the idea of moving back home and writing. I know of other writers who have done it but I feel like it would be a form of reversion or something that would be unhealthy for me, I'd feel too much like the retarded aspergic kid I used to be before moving away I think. But the only other option then is to either sink a bunch of money on a place to rent for a few months, or to work part-time in those months in a minimum wage position with people several years younger than me. But again, if I deviate from a relatively secure "career" and start working those types of jobs, isn't this just another form of reversion (i.e. a desire to relinquish the burden of adulthood and seeking a more childlike state? Practically speaking it's not, it's just an attempt to find more time to write, but psychologically etc it may be just that.

Poe didn't live in 2016. There are endless opportunities to get work, grants, and funding as a writer. That's why I'd dismiss any published writer that only makes "minimum wage" as a bum that doesn't work.

Don't go back home. If you are in America you can go to some small town or a falling down city like Memphis where you can live on something like $150 a week. If you are in Europe you can do the same in a place like Portugal. Or go live on welfare -- it's easy enough in most places if you work a little.

$150 is chump change that you should be able to earn easily in two days of work a week. Then take writing seriously as a career that will bring in an income and not just a trifling hobby. Think of yourself as a doctor or a lawyer in training. It will take a few years before you get anywhere, but there's no reason you can't do it. It seems like there is loads of competition, but if you're talented and you work 8 hours a day writing then you are miles ahead 90% of people that claim they want to be writers.

I took a Creative Writing course that cost money to do. This was a prestigious course that wasn't very easy to get on. Some of the people on it couldn't be bothered to submit work to the course. Those are the people you are up against. Even paying money and having nothing to do but write and they still can't scrape together 3,000 words at the end of the week.

Imagine if they were claiming they wanted to be doctors and yet all they'd done was read half a textbook and watched House. Or if they wanted to be professional football players and they'd never once bothered to practice.

don't drop your work

you still have several free hours every day and 2 days weekend to do w/e you want

not having a work or any other important thing to do in most of cases leads to waning of your self-esteem and/or leads to depression (and till you publish something and it gets read and you get paid you likely cannot justify yourself by your writing) and usually to losing a lot of time because your time becomes a mess

And the moral of the story is that smart people quit wageslavery and become successful and famous because of it.

That sense of reversion is the influence of "the world." The world is not to be dismissed, only navigated in pursuit of the essential. If you have the means to attempt pursuit but the result of failure is insurmountable, don't do it - that's a move toward the inessential. If you have the means and failure is survivable, do it. What if I end up on the street?: good navigation. What if I have to suffer embarrassment?: poor navigation. Navigate the world or obey its influence, dress a wound or dress for fashion.

I appreciate the reply and I accept that I do allow the influence of my peers and of "society" to influence me perhaps too much, while this does benefit me in certain regards in other ways it makes me miserable. I am pretty paranoid and so on and I often feel like I am waiting for some great punishment simply for being alive. I just don't want to misinterpret my motivations and ambitions, which are largely subconscious and unavoidable. Perhaps my mind is simply trying to trick me into becoming a NEET back at home and has figured out that tricking me into believing artistic success is what I actually want is a good way of going about it. I have a very intense inferiority complex and it goes beyond convincing me I can't write and often makes me feel as though I should not exist. I realize it's irrational (though perhaps the writing bit is a reasonable suspicion) but I struggle very hard to shake it. I have a tendency to view the external world as this unyielding mass in which I have no place. In my workplace I haven't taken a single day off through illness and never arrive late etc because I am so concerned that the consequence will be a confirmation of my existence as something to be done away with.