Recommend me some good literature for improving your writing

Recommend me some good literature for improving your writing

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourses_of_Epictetus
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Anything by Bellow, Roth, Gass.

To add to this shitty OP, I really want to learn how to do creative writing well, with humor mixed in for good measure. I don't even know where to begin, how the fuck does someone learn to write better? I'm beginning to think that me not being able to be creative with writing is more a symptom of just having a very inactive mind. I don't know!

I'll check them out. Any of their works in particular I should read?

Despite what many people say, creativity is something you learn and improve upon. You just need to practise, but it can be difficult to know exactly what practising creativity is like. Just practise coming up with stuff in your brain, coming up with ideas. Internally observe where your inspirations and ideas come from, how they came into your thoughts, and what sparks exterior observations that you make. You can write them down, but you don't have to necessary do so. Expand on those ideas when you have them. Take them to their logical end point, or rearrange them, deconstruct them, whatever. Learn and practice thinking creatively. It'll get easier with time.

>despite what many people say, creativity is something you learn and improve upon

Citations needed or you're just making him waste his time with false hopes.

Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow, Infinite Jest, the list goes on...

Ask anyone who has developed a skill in the arts and they'll tell you the same thing. No citation needed, because what citation could possibly be provided? It's an immeasurable thing. Just take it as my opinion and advice then, OP.

Write a lot, read books, get out of your comfort zone.

I'm not the original poster, I was just calling you out on this bold assertion. I'm okay with it being an opinion.

I'm not the original poster,

I didn't think you were. Yeah it is an opinion. Maybe it is a bold statement, and I probably didn't articulate it very well.

When I say practise, I don't mean just sit down and try to think of things in the way someone might sit down and go over some piano scales. I'm talking about just sort of naturally learning to accept your ideas and be selective about them. Learning to become aware of what thoughts are useful to you, which you might otherwise ignore. In my case, before I have developed this skill to think more creatively over time, I would often make observations and have ideas that I would just discard as useless or trivial, not synthesising them with other material.

You can learn style and form and stuff from a book, and that's really helpful, but you can't really learn to think about how to creatively work on a project, IMO, without practising how you identify, synthesise, and expand upon decent thoughts and observations. It's really more about building a habit of thought than anything. This is all true of me anyway. It might be different for others. But just anecdotally, people do get better creatively as they keep going with their creative art. I think a lot of it has to do with just being less self critical of your thoughts, giving them time to be expanded upon before you dismiss them.
It also takes time to learn how far an idea should be expanded upon and when it's a good enough idea to be used.

The same goes with the actual technical details of writing though. You can read about it, know in the abstract how it should be done, but you still have to practise.

*TLDR: My advice for creativity is: allow yourself to ruminate on ideas before you dismiss them, expand upon them, use them in your writing, assess how it went, repeat.

Yes there are definitely sources you can cite for measuring fucking creativity. How dense are you?

Please do.

I just started to read some essays by Mark Twain. His essay, "what is man?", blew my mind, and I highly recommend giving it a shot.

> creativity can be measured.
> subjective values can be quantified
> internal cognitive processes are observable by science.
kek. tell us more, Sigmund.

OP here, back from the dead. Sorry for ditching the thread.

Wow, this addresses my dilemma in a way that I really couldn't do before. Thank you! I've pretty much taken your advice to heart and will try to internalize it. Hopefully I can be more conscious of my thought patterns.

Please post sources.

How is Herzog going to improve writing?

Honestly just read a lot. You'll subconsciously pickup on things, and maybe take notes on powerful passages so you can go back and analyze what made them impactful

none of the books you've listed have any relation to the author's that were referenced.

Anyone recommend me some books about Stoicism?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourses_of_Epictetus

Ohh, I've heard of this. I'm kinda obsessing over the whole stoicism thing after my grandpa died.

redditors flying out of the fucking woodwork this summer

How do I get better at writing essays? I'm 20 but when I write it always seems like it was written by a 13 year old. It's too simple. I'm currently trying to improve my grammar and vocabulary but how do I make my essays/writing better?

fate was cruel to this one

read more. write more. look at more words. consciously think about words more

words words words, hamlet said